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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22992916">and i don't wanna hurt you darling (i don't want to let you down again)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fivesecrets/pseuds/fivesecrets'>fivesecrets</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>for the last time verse [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Men's Football RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Background Relationships, Conversation Heavy, Explicit Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, International Break, Lies, M/M, Panic Attacks, Phone Calls, Rivers, Therapy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 07:34:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>93,246</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22992916</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fivesecrets/pseuds/fivesecrets</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I thought about it. About what you said.”</p><p>Or, in which Kai learns that the truth can't stay hidden forever.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Julian Brandt/Kai Havertz</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>for the last time verse [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1371250</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>61</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>• Welcome to the final part of the series.<br/>• Please, before you read this, just quickly re-familiarise yourself with the river metaphor and also the parts of part 2 that talk about Kai and Julian meeting in Bremen as children - if you don't remember them it's harder to understand important parts of this!<br/>• I'm posting part one because it's ready - part two should be done tomorrow but definitely by Friday; I've just been a bit ill recently so I haven't done it as quickly as I promised and I feel bad about that.<br/>• (ONCE CHAPTER TWO IS POSTED)Another request I have is for you to click on the 'Entire Work' button - I'd intended for this to be one chapter but it turned out to be too long, so doing that will allow you to read it in the way it's been written, rather than with a break.<br/>• I'm not sure how many of you know what the situation is in England to do with Coronavirus, but I will sum up the bit that's directly applicable to me (I appreciate this is selfish, and largely inconsequential in comparison to the ill and dead, however this is my self-commiseration): after eighteen months of hard work, sacrificed sleep and no social life (writing this series was my only distraction from school) my exams were cancelled.  As the youngest child (I'm still only 17), I often felt like Ron Weasley in the sense that my older siblings caused me to be overlooked - my GCSE results were about the only time I've ever been recognised for anything - and not being able to prove myself in A Levels has destroyed both a lot of my self-worth and motivation.  I hope this doesn't show in the later sections of the work following the news, but if it does, my sincerest apologies if I couldn't make it what you wanted.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> <strong>leverkusen, germany</strong> </em>
</p><p>“If I asked you a question, can you promise to answer it honestly?” Jannis says eventually, and really, Kai knew this was coming.  Julian’s younger brother been battling internally over when and how to ask it ever since he got here.</p><p>Little does Jannis know, Kai barely ever tells the truth anymore, at least not publicly.  It’s easier that way.  It gets people off his case much quicker, stops him from being confronted with questions he doesn’t know how to answer, and would rather die than admit as such.  But even so, he nods, almost intrigued to see how Jannis has decided to wrap the million-dollar question, that’s laid bare for him no matter how many bows and embellishments he might add to it.</p><p>His silent mockery, resignation to preparing another lie to fall off his lips, only serves to haunt him, because the question he does get isn’t what he assumed, but somehow manages to be even worse.</p><p>“Do you know you have a problem?”</p><p>“What do you mean?” Kai splutters, body lurching violently, causing him to almost fall off his chair.  “I’m perfectly fine, I---,”</p><p>“You’re not.  Fucking hell, Kai, you and Julian had the tendency to act like idiots sometimes, but I at least thought you were <em>self-aware.</em>  You should know that having panic attacks and ending up collapsing on the doorsteps of bars or coming to surrounded by broken plates and blood isn’t normal, or in any way healthy.  Surely, you know that?”</p><p>“I do,” Kai whispers, all of a sudden not having the energy to deflect Jannis’ accusation.  He’s exhausted, the kind of exhaustion that’s guttural, that was present long before he stepped onto the pitch for the recovery session at training this morning, and Jannis has already been at his flat for the best part of three hours, so by now he’s a zombie walking.  On the positive side, it does prevent him from thinking of the humiliation of yesterday’s match against Dortmund, the absolute demolition Julian’s side subjected Leverkusen to underneath the watching, gleeful eyes of all the cunts wearing black-and-yellow shirts with BRANDT emblazoned on the back.  He wanted to burn them all, but all he got was whistles from his own fucking fans as he trailed off the pitch, and a look of sheer confusion on Julian’s face as he leant down to kiss Lotta.  “But I’ll be okay.  It’s just a phase, these… things that happen to me, they’ll go away eventually.”</p><p>“You’ve been saying that for months,” Jannis says, in the kind of soft-tough tone that can only belong to someone who’s <em>concerned</em>, and Kai would rather die than have people be concerned for him at this stage.  It only makes moving on harder, every time he thinks he’s doing okay, something happens, and he’s relegated back to square one, and God knows he should be almost over it by now.     </p><p>“I won’t just get over it in a day.  It takes time.”</p><p>“And what are you doing <em>to </em>get over it?  Counting every day that you don’t have one as a step towards recovery?”</p><p>“Isn’t that how it works?”</p><p>“Yes, once you’ve started getting help,” Jannis fires back, and okay, Kai was not ready or expecting this conversation in any way, shape, or form, and his lack of a fall-back lie is starting to show.  He’s created such an extensive catalogue of the things, he’s almost mad at himself for omitting a topic that was obviously going to come up eventually.  “I’m assuming you’re not getting any help?”</p><p>“I have Sophia.” He isn’t wrong.  She is about the only thing keeping him afloat at this point.  <em>Shit, </em>he’s worse than he thought.</p><p>“She’s fantastic,” Jannis agrees, “but she says herself that she isn’t a therapist.”</p><p>“I don’t need a fucking therapist!”</p><p>“Kai, you’re going to hate me for saying this, but everyone’s thinking it: you need help.  Not just from Sophia, or your family, or me, or Mitch, or anyone else you might have actually given some insight into whatever’s going on in your fucking head, but someone who knows precisely what they’re talking about, they might be able to help you deal with it.  And if they can’t, well, at least you tried.”</p><p>“What the fuck are they going to tell me, that I miss him?”</p><p>“Maybe.”</p><p>“Brilliant.  I can give up my time and money just to be told something that every fucking fan is commenting on the videos I’m in, or every time practice is livestreamed and I’m standing by myself, and they just can’t wait to talk about how much I’m missing Julian.  Maybe I should just go to one of them, if that’s all I’m going to be told.”  Kai’s perfectly aware he’s being a dick, that Jannis is just trying to help, but the comments that seem to be ceaseless are starting to grate him.</p><p>He just wants to live in peace, and not met with a reminder that Julian Brandt exists every time he opens Instagram.</p><p>“The point is, they’re going to try and help you deal with the fact you’re missing him.  Because it’s obvious you can’t do it yourself.”</p><p>“Jannis, you’re supposed to be supporting me!”</p><p>“I am, and that’s exactly why I’m telling you this.  I spoke to Sophia about it, and she agrees that you need to see someone about this, so if you won’t listen to me, please, at least listen to her.  She’s your advisor, you said so yourself.”</p><p>Jannis’ words catch Kai off guard.  Just when did he speak to Sophia?</p><p>“Did she really say that?” He says, unabashed at how quiet his voice has suddenly gone.  “I can’t believe she hasn’t spoken to me about it.”</p><p>“We talked yesterday, at the match,” Jannis says, tone gentle, and it’s total whiplash.  “She’s worried about you, we all are, especially because of some of the shitty things the fans have started saying about you.”</p><p>Kai swallows violently.  He can’t even look at Julian’s younger brother anymore, because he’s right, and for the slightest second Kai wishes he wasn’t so fucking proud, because then maybe he’d actually start to make steps in the right direction.  Towards a life where Julian is nothing more than an opponent, or a national teammate, instead of a fucking inescapable vice.</p><p>He doesn’t even recognise his voice as his own when he speaks.</p><p>“You’re right.  I do need help.”</p><p>Finally, the frown lines Jannis has been wearing since he crossed the threshold of Kai’s house lift and are replaced with a smile that almost make Kai believe he’s doing the right thing.  In fairness, he does suppose that the panic his own thought processing elicits from him more often than not did slightly inspire his impulsive words, but if he’s being truthful, he’s just lying again.  Anything to throw anyone off the scent.  Even Sophia, even when he knows it isn’t fair to treat her that way after she’s done so much for him, but if she’s fraternising with the enemy (and by that, he means the people who are actually trying to force him into feeling <em>better </em>because he just wants to wallow in his pain until he’s <em>ready</em>) he has to do it to her.  The panic attacks are, despite from being majorly embarrassing, relatively manageable, anyway.</p><p>Even so, Jannis does finally relent,</p><p>“I’m not going to push you into doing anything,” Julian’s brother says, and Kai has to pinch the skin of the back of his hand underneath the table to keep him from making a snide comment, “at least, not yet.  But deciding to try and get better is at least half the battle.  Speaking of which, did I tell you I broke my record number of kills in Fortnite the other day---,”</p><p>As Jannis divulges into a completely irrelevant spiel, dorky smile planted on his lips as he rambles on about whatever, Kai isn’t even listening anymore, he takes the time to study him.  There’s so many similarities, and if he stares into Jannis’ eyes for long enough, he can practically see Julian staring back at him.  It’s too much, the fear’s too much, the worry that Sophia’s going to expose him gradually to everyone else and then Julian’s going to find out how he feels, and fuck knows that can’t happen.  They’d go from a dysfunctional mess who can pull themselves together for a couple of days just to get through, to enemies.  The only plausible response Julian could have would be punching him in the face.</p><p>“---are you even listening to me?!” Jannis exclaims.</p><p>“I’m sorry, bro, it’s just, I didn’t sleep very well last night, and training was tough this morning, you know, Bosz was mad about the scoreline yesterday, so I’m really tired, and---,” he stammers, tripping over his words, and if he was ever less believable about his own confidence, he’d be damned to see it.</p><p>“I get it.  I can go, if you want.”</p><p>“Do you mind?  It was good to see you, but--,”</p><p>“No worries, Kai, I was thinking that you looked like shit.  Go and take a nap.  I’ll see myself out.”</p><p>He doesn’t waste his energy arguing, almost rushing to his bedroom to try and slam the door on the doubts that Jannis has planted in his head, the words that are still lingering in the corners of his flat, but then his heart starts racing in the horrific sense that precedes a panic attack and his bedroom suddenly feels far too small, but luckily, Jannis has left by the time he leaves, pacing up and down the long hallway between the living room and his bedroom until his heart finally starts to calm down.  His knees are shaking, and he’s cold as fuck, but at least he didn’t fall foul to the throes of anxiety’s mercy, and maybe it’s a step forward.</p><p>Fuck them and their <em>help</em>.  He can get by just fine by himself.</p><p>It’s almost laughable how much superficial confidence his own sentiments instil in him, because the next thing he knows, he’s strolling around his kitchen like there aren’t the tiniest, dark remnants of blood staining the floor and the bottom of the chest of cabinets, plating up the dinner he’s got pretty good at cooking on the plates with the same design that he pieced the shards of together.  He leads two separate lives, the acrimonious narcissist that lives to see the expression on Julian’s face crumple somewhat after an unexpected and harsh statement, and the real him, the emotionally vulnerable, honest him, that he conceals from surfacing just to prevent its damage to the façade he’s worked meticulously to create.</p><p>There’s no consistency, and he can tell it must be infuriating to those who he subjects his innermost thoughts to (though only in fragments, it would be like a jigsaw if he’d left them a model of what the complete picture should resemble), but he can’t stop himself.  It’s a coping mechanism, by this point, and he knows it, and in a sick way, he almost enjoys it.</p><p>The beep of the microwave interrupts his thoughts.</p><p>Maybe it’s for the best, because there seems to be way too many of those these days, and if what other people might deem dangerous levels of avoidance is the way to protect himself, there isn’t a choice for him.</p><p>That’s what they don’t understand.  If there was a choice, he wouldn’t be acting like this, wouldn’t be doing this to himself, wouldn’t be doing this to the people he cares about.  But he didn’t get a choice then, back when this shit all started, and fuck if he was able to get one now.</p><p>His food burns the roof of his mouth.  He’s blowing frantically on it, childlike, when his phone buzzes.</p><p>It’s an unknown number.</p><p><strong>Unknown: </strong>hey, kai.  i need to talk to you</p><p>His stomach squeezes agonisingly, the solid weight of dread settling tauntingly in the pit of his gut, and just as he’s about to respond against all of his better principles, another message comes in.</p><p><strong>Unknown: </strong>shit, sorry.  it’s lotta.  i got your number from lars, i hope you don’t mind</p><p><strong>Kai: </strong>it’s no problem</p><p><strong>Kai: </strong>what can i help you with?</p><p><strong>Lotta: </strong>this is the kind of conversation i’d prefer to have in person, so the next best thing is to call you.  are you free?</p><p>Instantly, the fear that rescinded somewhat when he saw that it was Lotta comes back, maybe even harder than before.  He’s always hated how difficult it is to gauge mood from text messages, but one look at her words imply that he’s fucked up somewhere, and there’s really only one possible situation she could be on about.</p><p>The kiss after the match yesterday.</p><p><strong>Kai: </strong>yeah, i am</p><p>He wasn’t sure what had come over him when he’d seen Julian and Lotta conversing happily, maybe it was some sort of bitter jealousy that past feelings might resurface.  He’s got no right to feel that way, but he knows, still, that whoever Julian picks to spend the rest of his life with, he’s going to spend the rest of his life resenting them, and he just doesn’t want it to be Lotta.  Not her, after the maybe even unintentional support she’s given him.  So, he strolled between them, whispered in her ear that so long as she was okay with it he just needed her to play along, and she did, and really, he should’ve thought about how it would come across; how he practically gently manhandled her into kissing him directly in Julian’s eyeline, and now she’s calling to tell him she hates his guts.</p><p>If she does, he can just add her to the pile of people that do, led by none other than himself.</p><p>“Hey,” she says, and it takes him a second to regain his composure, “how are you?”</p><p>“I’m alright.  Training was tiring.  How are you, you’re in Bremen, right?”</p><p>“I’m alright, thank you.  And yes, I am.” Kai’s not sure if it’s the slight distortion of the phone connection, or if there is really a huge sense of awkwardness between the two of them.  While the former may enhance the situation, he’d be an idiot to try and deny the presence of the latter.  “But I needed to talk to you.”</p><p>“If it’s about yesterday, I’m really sorry, I---,” he stutters, but she cuts him off, and he can almost see the way she raises her hand.</p><p>“It is about yesterday, but let’s not rush into harried apologies.  Firstly, I just wanted to know why you did it.”</p><p>It’s roughly about then he realises how much easier it is to have this conversation on the phone, with Lotta almost three hundred kilometres away, because he doesn’t have to see the shock, or worse the knowing looks that collect on the faces of the very select group of people he’s confessed his feelings to.  It’s that look that scares him the most.</p><p>“If I do, you have to promise me you won’t tell anyone.”</p><p>“I think I can manage that,” she answers, and even though he usually can’t stop himself from distrusting everyone, there’s something about her that just makes him blurt it out.</p><p>“I’m in love with Julian, and I got jealous.  I’m sorry, but I saw you guys talking, and I just, I needed go get the two of you apart from each other.”  He’s perfectly aware he sounds like an absolute cunt, hanging his head in shame regardless of the fact she can’t see him.  The perky tone of her reply makes him almost jump out of his skin in surprise.</p><p>“There’s no reason to get jealous of Jule and me.  When we did date, it was an absolute mess, and he’s a good friend now anyway.  But also, I’m a lesbian, so it’d be impossible for me to feel any sort of attraction towards him nowadays!”</p><p>Kai’s heart drops like a stone.</p><p>“Um, Lotta, does Julian, um,” he stutters, knowing there’s no way she’s going to be able to understand him with the combination of the wavering connection and the wind Kai can hear howling through the speaker.  He remembers how windy that city is.  It’s how, really, he first met Julian, because the ball was blown in his family’s direction, and Jan rushed off with him to join his game.  Either way, he shuts his eyes, and spits the words out.  “Does Julian know you’re a lesbian?”</p><p>“Yeah, he’s known for years.  He was one of the first people I ever came out to, it was around the time he was doing his Abitur.  Did you know him back then?”</p><p>“No,” Kai says, breathing far too quickly and hoping she can’t detect it in his voice.  “Fuck,” he says next, but that, she <em>does </em>hear.</p><p>“What?  Are you okay?”</p><p>“I’m sorry, Lotta.  For everything,” the spin of the kitchen around him has started and is increasing in velocity rapidly, and there’s no way he’s going to be able to escape this, just needs to delay it long enough to get her off the phone.  He collapses onto the sofa.  “I, um, there was another reason why I kissed you.”</p><p>“Go on?  Are you okay, you sound terrified?”</p><p>“I’m fine,” he lies, pulling himself together long enough to get his next words out, “I needed to get away from Julian, so I pretended I was in a relationship to stop him asking to have sex with me, but then I saw him and you, and I saw a perfect opportunity to reiterate that point, so I kissed you to act like you’re my girlfriend, but <em>fuck</em>, he knows that I haven’t been dating anyone,” belatedly, some semblance of himself resurfaces and he realises just how much he’s revealed, “and sorry, I’ve got to go, my friend’s here, bye.”</p><p>The click of the line going dead and the subsequent silence the echoes through the flat scream vicious insults at him, on top of the questions he knows she’s going to ask the second she gets back to Leverkusen. He can almost see it, the annoyed confusion in her eyes as she calls him out in front of the entire locker room, and there’s something indescribable about her that means he knows it’s going to be a million times worse than Mitch’s evisceration.</p><p>Burying his face in the nearest cushion he can grasp does nothing to block out the image of her his mind has latched onto, and only makes shit worse, because he’s sure he can make out Julian’s scent, this was the side of the sofa he used to lie on for hours when they’d play video games all evening.  But even as he picks up the incriminating object and throws it across the room, the smell of Julian worsens, with the same sort of intensity as when Julian used to lie atop of him, avoiding his eyes as he thrust downwards, and there was so much isolated warmth between their bodies.  It’s so familiar, so disturbingly homely, he can’t stop himself from calling out Julian’s name before slapping his hands over his mouth, immediately feeling his skin go hot.</p><p>His thoughts are so singularly focused on the scent, he doesn’t even notice his hands are trembling until he blindly reaches for his phone on the coffee table, wordlessly thanking whoever’s responsible for the invention of touch ID as he pulls up his chat with Sophia.</p><p><strong>Kai: </strong>soph are you honme?</p><p><strong>Kai: </strong>i cna’t stay here</p><p>He doesn’t even bother to check his typos, and the sigh of relief that escapes him when he sees the three dots appear on the bottom of the screen is audible.</p><p><strong>Sophia: </strong>i’m still at uni</p><p><strong>Sophia: </strong>i’ll be home in like twenty minutes</p><p><strong>Kai: </strong>can i wiat for you therre?</p><p><strong>Sophia: </strong>of course</p><p><strong>Sophia: </strong>are you going to be okay?</p><p>Her question is a formality, she must have more than just a mere inkling what’s happening to him, but he can’t make himself respond, instead grabbing his keys and barely even grabbing a coat before he’s out of the flat, tearing down the stairs and trying to outrun the ghost of Julian that is definitely following him.  He’s almost grateful for the sickly smell of petrol as he turns off the street of his apartment, half-sprinting like he’s deranged over to Sophia’s.  She only lives ten minutes away, but for the amount of attention Kai’s paying to the journey, she could live in Munich and he wouldn’t even notice until he fumbles with the key in the lock.</p><p>He doesn’t make it past the entrance hall.  His legs give out somewhere between the door and the open-plan kitchen-living area, slumped against the wall as the room slowly spins, the axis forever changing, the discontinuity rendering breathing impossible, aiding that fucking serpent that’s returned to coil around his neck.  It’s an old friend by this point, unwelcome yet utterly recognisable as his own stupidity, his own weakness, a sinuous manifestation of all his greatest faults.</p><p>At this point, said serpent might as well have almost platinum blonde hair, deep blue eyes, thighs that Kai has wanted to mark ever since he laid eyes on them bare, and might as well introduce himself to Kai as Julian, because there’s no questioning where he’s from.  There’s only, like so many other factors of Kai’s life since May, questioning how to fucking get rid of it.</p><p>Somewhere along the way, his thoughts lose out completely to the overwhelming waves of panic infiltrating his brain.  The wall doesn’t support him, his head hits the wooden floor with an ugly crack, and it’s only the fact that it’s Sophia’s possessions in reach that prevents him from opening the cabinets and breaking every single thing in sight, if only because it’s the easiest way to draw his own blood.</p><p>Pools of his own blood already form reminders of his idiocy at home, and why shouldn’t they at Sophia’s?  Just as his desire for self-injury conquers his morals, Sophia comes through the door, and she must realise at once what’s happening, because the next thing Kai knows, there’s small, strong hands around his middle and he’s being dragged towards the sofa.  If her placing down of him is a little rough, he can put that down to their height and strength disparity.</p><p>He rolls over, face-down against the cushions that sink beneath him, and that’s when the first scream passes his lips.  There’s no consciousness at all following that, replaced with a weird out-of-body experience where he knows he’s writhing and yelling bloody murder, knows Sophia has placed a gentle hand on his wrist to ensure he doesn’t topple right off the furniture, but he can’t sense it.</p><p>The blackness does little to stop the spinning.</p><p>He’s falling down a tube into the back of his own head, greeted by jittering stars that are the precise colour of blue that Julian’s eyes turned on those late, sensual nights.</p><p>“Soph,” he croaks out, before he slips back under, worse this time, his lungs forcing all the air out of his body and flatly refusing to intake anymore.  Hot tears stain his cheeks, but he can’t swallow down the burning taste of the mucus in his mouth, the back of his throat burning with its dryness.  She’s saying something to him, but she might as well be on Mars.</p><p>He doesn’t know how long he’s been there when he rolls onto his back, staring at the ceiling.  He knows Sophia is trying to make him look at her, but he’s still not recaptured his further-weakened sense of himself, doesn’t want to look her in the eyes and see the worry.  Doesn’t want to start screaming at her for the conversations she had with Jannis, because he knows she just wants the best for him, but the worst thing is he doesn’t think he could stop himself.</p><p>The ceiling, the only break between him and the sky, is a way less accusatory focus for his attention, because at least, unless it crumbles on him, it won’t tell of any of the secrets it’s witnessed.  No one needs to know it’s happened again, right?  Aside from Sophia, who’s probably going to text Jannis straight away and then before Kai knows it, the rumours will be circulating again and one of these days, he’s going to get dropped from the first team squad.</p><p>The thought might send him into another wave of panic, but his body’s too exhausted.  Faintly, he notices that his hair is wet and sticking to him, blearily listens to the rain pattering against the windows outside before Sophia cuts off his tranquillity.</p><p>“Are you feeling better now?”</p><p>“Yeah, thanks,” he says, turning his head to watch the raindrops on said windows, if only to avoid looking her in the eyes.  He’s gone from the unreachable depths of his attacks to the subsequent humiliation that is never quite enough to embarrass him out of this stupid way of thinking, but by now, she knows this, and is mercifully quiet; if only if it weren’t for the fact that this was so common she knows the precise stages of it, Kai’d almost be the complete antithesis to his state two minutes ago.</p><p>Most of the apartments in the block facing Sophia’s are unlit, however there is one, living room brightly lit against the blackness of its surroundings to the extent that the two figures, one male, one female, are silhouetted.  They’re mildly interesting, and even from his position on Sophia’s sofa, Kai can make out the anger in their body languages as they have what must be a heated debate, anger which must be fading because almost as soon as Kai gets over their uncanny likeness to the ending scenes of romantic comedies that are just not tacky, the hunched shoulders drop and the woman’s in the man’s arms, turning her face up to kiss him.</p><p>There’s so many possible backstories, it’s a strange reminder of how he doesn’t know anyone fully, how no one knows him fully, how, even when they might be discussing his state behind his back, they don’t truly know every single feeling he only allows himself to ponder when the lights are off and his flat is silent.</p><p>It’s enough of a sentiment to make him turn back and look Sophia in the eyes, trying not to paint his irritation with her on his face.</p><p>“I’d ask if you wanted to talk about it, but I’d assume the answer is going to be no,” she says, seemingly as annoyed with him as he is with her, and even so, he prays this isn’t going to be the activating event to a sequel to their fight a few weeks ago, because he couldn’t handle it.  He doesn’t deserve to pick and choose when she decides to lose it with him, if she’s ever going to do so again, but he can’t stop himself.  He’s selfish, they both know it, he would not be surprised in the least if she’s come to expect it from him.  “But I did want to ask if you’d consider getting specialist help for it?”</p><p>“Yes, I know you’ve been speaking to Jannis,” he snaps, and he can see the surprise at having been caught register on his close friend’s face.  She’s effortlessly beautiful, but distaste does not suit her at all, so his voice is softer when he continues.  “He told me earlier today.  At the time, I said yes to shut him up, but I don’t really want to do it--,”</p><p>“Of course, you don’t.  No one does,” she smiles weakly, doing as much to dissuade the rising tension between them as he is, “because if they did, there wouldn’t be such a stigma about it.  Look, Kai, I know you thought this was only temporary, that you’d just have to sit through it and you’d come out the other side, and honestly, I still believe that you keep telling yourself that in the hopes it’ll become some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy and you’ll recover that way.  I will admit, I thought they were just a couple of minor incidents, it was bound to happen with the high-running emotions and all the shit that’s going on in your life right now, but it’s so much easier to see from my perspective.  You need help, Kai, before this gets bigger than you.”</p><p>“It feels bigger than me already, so what’s the fucking point?”</p><p>She’s the only one who’s presence enables him to act defeatist, so the overwhelming sensation is more of surprising honesty rather than the discomfort that is usually associated with voicing his weakness.  He can see her weighing up what to say to him, her face bares the same expression as Jannis’ did this morning, and the notion sets enough another fuse in him, one he didn’t know existed, another slow-burn string, another ticking time bomb, all seemingly synced together, and when they explode, he knows already that it isn’t going to be pretty, and furthermore he’s got the scary sense that Julian is going to be the culprit.</p><p>Maybe the beat of his heart that doubles as the clock will become a relaxing, intimate familiar, rather than an assertion of deficiency.  Maybe the fuse will demise before the damage can be sowed, its death occurring alongside Kai’s, and no one will have to witness it.</p><p>If he can hide the truth, he can hide his character.</p><p>“It’s not bigger than you.  Not yet anyway, and certainly not with the people you’ve got by your side,” Sophia says gently, reminding Kai that he’s actually in the middle of a conversation with the person who knows him second best in the entire world, who won’t miss a trick when it comes to the minutiae of his thoughts, and it’s almost not even worth staying quiet.</p><p>Letting the minute of temptation pass is difficult, but once it’s over, it’s going to be much easier to lie to her from here on out.</p><p>He does, however, let a fear slip out that even he wasn’t privy to,</p><p>“By my side, that is, until I do something to fuck it up.”</p><p>“I’m not going to sit here and tell you that there’s nothing you could do to fuck it up, because we both know there are things that I would be so mad at you for,” she says, displaying the honesty that, deep down, Julian knows is pretty much a lifesaver.  “But you’re an idiot if you think I’m going to leave you just because you’re suffering panic attacks.”</p><p>“Thanks,” he breathes out, “I’m sorry.”</p><p>“And stop fucking apologising,” she tries to laugh, it’s a weak attempt at lightening the mood, but Kai’ll take it.  “Well, I say that, you can stop apologising once you agree to get help, and actually follow through with it.”</p><p>“Why do you all think I need it so badly?”</p><p>Sophia just looks at him, gestures wildly to the sofa he’s stretched out on, “you can’t seriously think you’re going to keep getting national team callups or even in the starting eleven at Bayer if you keep collapsing?”</p><p>Kai doesn’t have any answer for her, so he changes the subject again, “why were you talking to Jannis about this?”</p><p>“You’re not going to get mad at me?”</p><p>“It wouldn’t be fair of me if I did.”</p><p>“I’ll hold you to that,” she smiles slightly, looking about the calmest he’s seen her all day.  “It wasn’t planned, before you think we’re all conspiring or something, but he mentioned that he was worried about you and I had to tell him that I was thinking the same thing.  He asked so many questions about you, and I tried to lie, I promise you, because I know you’re pretty closed about these things, but he looked so concerned I just gave in and told him everything.”</p><p>“Everything?” Kai says, almost feeling his eyes widen in panic, “so about Jule--,”</p><p>“I didn’t name him, but if I’m honest with you, he already knows.”</p><p>“Fuck, no, no, Jannis---,” Kai stutters out, feeling Sophia’s hand on his wrist as she tries to curb him from slipping back underneath the waves, and he’s reminiscent of a drowning man, fighting to stay afloat as the foam starts to infiltrate his lungs. </p><p>“Look, it’s okay, I made him promise not to tell Julian,” Sophia whispers, but she must sense that he doesn’t want her words, he just wants her presence, and slowly, he manages to climb out of the pain rosebush without getting pricked by any of the thorns.  It’s really dark in Sophia’s living room, and he almost misses her in the three seconds she’s gone to switch the main light on, dousing the room in a soft yellow glow.  “We can talk about something else, if you want?”</p><p>“No, we need to talk about this,” Kai stammers out, wishing his voice wasn’t ridiculously susceptible to his own emotions.  “How long has he known?”</p><p>“I’m not sure for certain, but Kai, you can’t go pretending like you’re not obvious to anyone who isn’t Jule.  It’s written on your face every single time you’re even thinking about him, let alone when you’re actually with him.”</p><p>“I bet you’re just saying that.  Julian probably knows.”</p><p>Sophia just shakes her head, expression so grim Kai feels it in his bones that she isn’t bullshitting him, and really, he’s so grateful.  “In terms of obliviousness, he’s even worse than you, I’d say.  Believe me, that’s some feat.”</p><p>“Did, um, did Jannis say anything about him?”</p><p>Sometimes, the fact that Kai knows her so well can be a huge detriment, but right then, he’s never been so happy for his literacy.  The way her lips tighten, she can’t quite meet his eyes, and Kai’s heart jumps in his chest.  It’s almost painful, but he decides, just for these five minutes, not to berate himself for his unending obsession with his former best friend, and just revel in the fact he still crosses Julian’s mind.</p><p>If he didn’t cross Julian’s mind when he was signing the contract to leave him, the next best thing is to haunt him, even if it does go wrong sometimes (he tries not to make his shudder at the Lotta debacle obvious).</p><p>“He did, didn’t he?”</p><p>“Fuck you,” Sophia flicks him off, but Kai’s heart is beating too fast to care.  “He obviously knows about these attacks, obviously he witnessed the one you had when you were away with the national team, and according to Jannis, he keeps asking after you, and apparently Jannis has caught him stalking your Instagram so many times.  But you did not hear that from me, and I didn’t hear that from him, okay?”</p><p>“Okay,” the smile on his face is probably equal to the fucking sun, but he couldn’t care less.  After all the jealousy, the anger, knowing that Julian can’t get him off his mind, that he’s still thinking about what they had in their friendship, fills with him with a happiness that’s too rare to ignore.  “Thanks, Soph.”</p><p>She waves him away, “now, are you staying the night?  Kara stayed over last night, and I haven’t changed the sheets, but you’re welcome to have the guest bedroom if you want.”</p><p>The sound of the raindrops lashing against the window is enough of an answer. </p><p>“I think I’ve still got some stuff here from the last time I stayed,” the best part of having her as his public girlfriend is how well they get on, he stays over at hers and laughs as she goes through her extensive skin care routine, lamenting how he cleared his skin with six months of drinking an extra glass of water a day and occasionally putting some moisturiser on.  “Did you wash the pyjamas I left?”</p><p>“No, because I’m not your mum,” she shoots back, words in sync with a pillow, before she drops the act, “yes, they’re in the wardrobe.”</p><p>“You’re the best,” he kisses her cheek, already heading towards his room.  It’s not particularly late, there’s been nights when he’s been awake five hours after the current time, but the stress of the afternoon, the morning training session, the conversations with Jannis, Lotta, Sophia, they’ve conspired to knock the stuffing out of him, and he’s absolutely fucking knackered.  “What time’s your lecture tomorrow?”</p><p>“Twelve, so I’ll need to go from here about half eleven,” she calls back from where she’s brushing her teeth in her bathroom.  “You can let yourself out whenever.”</p><p>“Thanks, I’ll probably leave when you do, though,” he says, calling a quick goodnight before shutting the door to the guest bedroom behind him.  Sure enough, all the clothes he’s left here are washed, ironed and folded, placed in the wardrobe in the measured way Sophia can’t live without (Kai’s lost count the amount of times she’s nagged him for leaving worn hoodies strewn all over his bedroom, except half the time, they weren’t even his; Julian was just as bad), so it doesn’t take him long to find his old, worn pyjamas.</p><p>In spite of his seeming tiredness when he was getting ready for bed, the second he cocoons himself underneath the covers, he’s pretty sure he could run a marathon or go for seven rounds of sex or something.  It happens sometimes, but he doesn’t want it tonight, when he’s in a good mood, because those only happen on a time limit and the clock is already running down.</p><p>The harder he squeezes his eyes shut, the further from him sleep evades.  The duvet’s too hot, so he chucks it off, then he’s too cold, so it comes back on, then he’s shirtless, then he’s rifling through his drawer for something else to wear.  As the helpful clock on his phone switches to midnight, switches to the following day, his serotonin must switch off as well, and even though he was expecting it, the sadness still sends radiation, shockwaves, attacks in all forms, and if he sets up a defence against one, there’s not enough resources to counteract the others.</p><p>So instead, he doesn’t waste his energy trying.  Staring into the blackness in the direction that must be the ceiling, lets the tears fall horizontally down his face, relieved at the lack of stinging pain, replaced with a sort of muted heartache that’s famed for those who are moving on.</p><p>Moving on from someone you never had is harder than someone you did, because you have to get over what might have been before you can even begin to deal with what you lost anyway.  He wonders if there’s something he could’ve done to avoid this, if there was a little throwaway comment he could’ve said that would’ve made Julian text his agent that he wouldn’t leave anywhere unless Kai was coming too, but the only words that would hold that sort of impact would fall flat because Julian never felt the same, and Kai knew they were unspeakable anyway.</p><p>“I love you,” he whispers into the nothingness, as if there’s going to be any way Julian’s going to hear him.  He must be going insane, only crazy people talk to themselves like the person they love is lying next to them, but he can’t stop himself (briefly, he considers if he’s finally fallen down the rabbit hole into official insanity).  “Fuck,” he’s cry-laughing, but not of joy, “I love you so much, Julian, shit.”</p><p>After his little affection-meltdown, the panic of another sleepless night and a million questions from Sophia starts to really get to him, until he’s far too anxious to sleep, and he hopes he doesn’t wake her as he clatters out of bed, stumbles into the kitchen and gulps down a glass of water, before absent-mindedly heading towards the main bathroom where he knows she keeps her medicines.  Once, they were cooking together and she sliced a massive gash in her hand, and he swears he can still hear her screamed instructions as to where the medical kit and the paracetamol was.</p><p>Rifling through, he eventually finds them, and grabs the pack of sleeping pills, not caring if they’re unsuitable for the drugs tests they’re occasionally subjected to.  If he gets caught for drug-related offences, at least that would allow him to hide from the public eye for a year.  By then, he should be fine.</p><p>He pours another glass of water and finishes the packet of pills, completely ignoring the warnings he used to get when studying for his biology Abitur that told him that more than two is dangerous, but they must be strong because he’s almost asleep before he even makes it back to bed.  They must work miracles, because, finally, he gets a dreamless sleep as opposed to something haunting.</p><p>He’s only woken by his phone ringing incessantly, which is momentarily confusing because he doesn’t remember setting an alarm, until he sees Mitch’s face on the screen.</p><p>“Yeah?” He says, not even hiding his yawn.  Mitch has heard it all before, after one too many late nights of getting railed by Julian and then not sleeping because his former best friend was too gorgeous.</p><p>“Can you let me in?  I’ve been knocking for ages.”</p><p>“What the fuck do you mean?”</p><p>“Are you deaf or something?  I’m at yours?”</p><p>“<em>Oh,</em>” Kai says, realisation setting in, “is it important?  I stayed the night at Sophia’s.”</p><p>“Wait, don’t tell me you and her---,” Mitch says, side-tracked.</p><p>“No!  I was just over here last night, and it was raining, so I stayed.  What are you doing at mine anyway?”</p><p>“I need to talk to you, and yes, it is important.  How quickly can you get here?”</p><p>As if on cue, Sophia comes through the door, mug of coffee already outstretched, “morning.  Who’s that?”</p><p>“Mitch, he’s at mine.  He needs to speak to me,” he says to her, placing the phone back against his ear, “okay, bro, if it’s really that important, I’ll be there in half an hour.”</p><p>“Great.  I’ll just sit here.  In the corridor, looking like a fucking twat,” Mitch fires back, but Kai knows he’s joking, laughing softly as the line goes dead.  As he sits back against the pillows, lazily taking sips of his coffee and unable to stop himself from looking at Sophia expectantly, she just holds his gaze, frowning back at him.</p><p>“Are you not going to hurry?”</p><p>“No,” he laughs, “he can wait.  He should know not to disturb me before at least eleven in the morning.”</p><p>“That’s true.  If you don’t have training or a match, I’m lucky to receive a text back before four in the afternoon,” Sophia laughs, right before the expression drops, “I found the sleeping pills packet in the bin, Kai.”</p><p>“I couldn’t sleep, I just took them---,”</p><p>“I don’t give a shit about you taking them, it’s just the fact you took <em>six</em>, Kai, you of all people should know that’s fucking dangerous.”</p><p>“I didn’t even realise.  Soph, I really don’t want to talk about this, I wasn’t trying to harm myself, I was literally just so tired and needed to sleep.”</p><p>“I’ll drop it, if you promise me that’s what really happened.”</p><p>“It was,” he says, managing to hold her eye contact without guilt creeping into his veins, trying to conceal the way he chokes on his coffee.  “I’m sorry.”</p><p>“Okay,” she says, standing up and heading towards the door, “I might as well walk you back to your flat, it’s on my way to uni anyway.  Be ready in ten.”</p><p>Kai’s movements are slow, laborious, robotically folding his used pyjamas and the other clothes he’s left there into a plastic bag to take them home and wash them.  There’s the concerning sensation of being on the edge of vomiting, his head is a little dizzy, but it isn’t threatening in the way that precedes a panic attack, it’s more reflective of illness.  Gulping down another two glasses of water does little to curb it, especially underneath Sophia’s friendly-hostile gaze, but it at least gives him something to do as she pulls her shoes on.</p><p>If she notices the deep breaths he takes as they exit her flat, just to get some fresh air into his lungs, she wisely doesn’t choose to comment on it.  In fact, they spent most of the short walk closer to the centre of the city in silence, Sophia only lightly whining about the rumour of a new, extensive essay her lecturer will set her course mates later on.</p><p>“Is this the nice lecturer or the horrible one?” Kai says as he unlocks the main door to his block of flats, nodding as she informs him it’s the harsh, strict one, who’s marking is apparently meticulous beyond belief.  Kai’s heard about that all before, so he simply nods and almost falls up the stairs, tripping on the edge.  Her snort is soft, but loud against the silence.</p><p>Mitch is leaning against the wall opposite Kai’s front door, half looking pissed and half-asleep as Kai and Sophia arrive, wordlessly following Kai into the apartment and graciously accepting the cup of coffee Sophia makes (she doesn’t need to ask Kai anymore, they’re long past that stage of fumbling uncertainty), but he doesn’t leave the kitchen, and even though it’s Kai’s damn house, he knows Mitch is going to rule the roost of this conversation.</p><p>“You look like shit,” Mitch says, a pretty common statement thrown in Kai’s general direction these days, to the point the words no longer take effect.  “Did you not sleep well last night or something?”</p><p>“My sleeping’s been fucked since I got back from the DFB,” Kai lies, “the schedule’s so weird there, they make us go to bed at like nine in the evening, but by the time you get used to it, you’re back at your club and going to bed way later,” Kai rambles, pointedly ignoring Sophia’s eye roll.  Mitch, however, takes the bait for what it’s worth,</p><p>“Believe me, I have to try and sleep like a normal person and set a good example for Sam.”</p><p>“He’s not your son,” Kai forces a laugh.</p><p>“No, he isn’t, but you should try telling him that and we might actually get somewhere,” Mitch shoots back, sensing Kai’s urgency to try and make this light-hearted and thankfully, doing his part.  “I swear to god, that kid acts like it sometimes.”</p><p>“That’s why you shouldn’t be dating a twenty-year-old.”</p><p>“Don’t I know it,” Mitch sighs, “I miss him, though.”</p><p>“When did you last see him?” Sophia asks sweetly, because she’s brilliant at carrying conversations when she senses that Kai’s about to flounder. </p><p>“He was here maybe a week ago, and I’m driving to Groningen after the match next Saturday, but after that the Dutch league gets really intense and he doesn’t think he’ll be able to visit much.  Our training times just don’t coincide either, so video chatting’s probably going to fall by the wayside.” Mitch’s expression is laced with sadness, and Kai really does sympathise with him.  He imagines, if things were different, if he wasn’t so bad at expressing how he feels, if Julian reciprocated and didn’t have those issues with trusting people that came from that sexually assaulting cunt who’s name Kai cannot remember for the life of him, maybe he and Julian would be in the same predicament as Mitch and Sam.  Really, he’d take it any day of the week over this.  “I just miss him.”</p><p>“I do too,” Kai says lowly, “obviously not like you, but---,”</p><p>“I know what you meant,” Mitch smiles, looking like he wants to say something else but then deciding against it.  “It’s just me and you, kid.”</p><p>“I’m not a kid.  I’m only six months younger than your boyfriend.”</p><p>“I never said Sam wasn’t a kid.”</p><p>If Kai didn’t feel taught with tension, he’d probably make a ‘nonce’ joke, but instead, he just swallows awkwardly, turning towards Sophia and praying she picks up how he’s mentally thrashing around.  She does, and she and Mitch are off in a conversation Kai can’t and has no desire to follow.  His mind is still replaying the memory of the pills he took the night before, the violence of their knock-out almost satisfying now he knows his body managed to pull through the danger he put himself in, and the tiniest part of him is twitching for that dull, relieving sensation to be bestowed on him again.</p><p>“Fucking hell, Kai, don’t get addicted on top of everything else,” Mitch curses, not angry, more concerned, and it brings back the worry signals that only sleep can eradicate.  “We need you; you can’t be doing this to yourself.”</p><p>“Why did you tell him?” He snaps at Sophia, who is the only person in the world who ever holds his gaze while he rages.  It’s times like this that’s it’s distinctly possible she knows him better than he knows himself, he could go in on her and all she’d do is make him realise all he’s doing is projecting every single thought he doesn’t want to have about himself.</p><p>“Are you done?” She cuts through his mindless agitation, the kind of tone that would be appropriate if she coupled the words with a hair flick.  “I told him, because when I’m not around to keep an eye on you, someone at Leverkusen has to know.”</p><p>“I won’t tell them,” Mitch promises, and it’s as simple as that to switch Kai’s mood from offensive to subdued, nodding in slight humiliation.  “Not unless it gets bad, or it starts to affect who you are as a footballer or a person, because on both a professional and personal level I’d be a bad person if I let that slide.  So long as we’re clear on that now, I won’t mention it again.”</p><p>“I guess I can accept that,” Kai says without thinking.  “Is that what you came to see me about?”</p><p>“Not that exactly,” Mitch says.  “But actually, it’s pretty similar.  I wanted to talk to you about your health in general.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“I assume you’re not noticing then, but you’re losing weight, Kai.  The bones are sinking in your face, and you were already thin before, but now it’s getting really worrying.  I don’t know if Sophia’s noticed, but obviously, we see you shirtless all the time, and I’m not the only one who’s realised the changes.  I just thought it’d be better to speak to you about it before Lars calls a fucking intervention to stuff you with chocolate or something.”</p><p>“Sounds like something he’d do,” Kai tries to make it sounds like a joke it’s intended to be, but really, since he regained himself and discovered Sophia had snitched on him, the tension in the room has increased and there’s little he can do to counteract it.  There’s a strain on him, on Mitch, on Sophia as well, and the subject of discussion is him again (it’s always him these days, except he’s never really <em>there</em>) and if his canyons of experience are anything to go by, it’s going to end in seriously raised voices and only-just-not-slammed-doors.  Just then, Mitch’s eyebrows fold in confusion and something in him picks up on it, so he snaps back into the room, “but yeah, I guess my nutrition has been a little bit disorganised recently.  I’ll get it all back together, starting today, I promise.”</p><p>“I’d offer to keep checking up on you, but I don’t think I should baby you with things you’ve been controlling for years.”</p><p>“I think that’s best,” Sophia adds weakly, and it’s maybe the first time Kai’s truly seen her exhibit some sort of weakness when it comes to him, which is strange.  He’s hit with the stunning notion that he just assumed she was okay with all the shit he put her through, that the second she stepped through the gates of her university he was irrelevant to her, he didn’t exist, but that’s not how being alive <em>works</em>.</p><p>It’s just another addition to the list of reasons why he despises himself.</p><p>“I’m sorry, guys,” he blurts out, and there must have been a moment of silence while he retreated into his own mind because their eyes both snap to him at the same time, “you don’t deserve the shit I’ve put you through.”</p><p>“No, we don’t,” Mitch replies, and Kai can see the begrudging respect flicker through Sophia’s eyes.  “And even though Sam’s gone too, part of me still can’t understand exactly why you feel like you do.  I don’t mean to sound like a preacher, or some old wise fucker, in spite of my surname, but I’ve met a lot of people over my career, but I’ve never seen anyone experience the emotions you’re going through.”</p><p>“I don’t know how to deal with it.  It’s not deep, just weird.  It’s not going to impact me anymore.”</p><p>“He says that, but we’re still going to get him into a couple of therapy sessions,” Sophia says, and <em>fuck</em>, is she hell bent on telling everyone his secrets?  He doesn’t have time to get annoyed this time, though, because the topic has already moved on. </p><p>“What went down between the two of you yesterday?” Mitch asks, and Kai actually stares dumbly for a good half-minute before Mitch prods, “Jule?”</p><p>“I don’t want to talk about him anymore.”</p><p>He’s oblivious to it, but his voice must have raised again, because both of them are wincing.</p><p>“Why not?  It was just a question, and you two were chatting yesterday, and you looked so sweet together---,”</p><p>“I’M NOT IN LOVE WITH HIM, CAN YOU GET OFF MY BACK, PLEASE?” Kai yells out of nowhere, this time there isn’t any denying that his voice is definitely too loud for the room, and only serves to contradict his words.  He doesn’t even know why he says it, they both know he is, but the words are out before his brain has time to suppress them, and immediately afterwards he’s mumbling harried apologies and cringing at the pitiful glances his friends are explicitly giving each other.</p><p>“Hey, kid, I can see that you’re exhausted, so it’s probably better that I leave and you go and get some more sleep,” Mitch looks tired as well, done with his bullshit rather than the madness that overcame the two of them in the locker room, “I’ll see you at training tomorrow.”</p><p>“I’ll see you out,” Kai says, holding the door, just turning back to listen to Sophia making noises about needing to get to class when Mitch’s voice rings out through the room, slicing pretty much any sense of self-collection he might have.</p><p>“Julian?  What the hell are you doing here?”</p><p>Kai’s just about to reason with himself, for some reason Julian Weigl must be here, maybe Kai left a boot in Dortmund’s stadium and Weigl’s been sent to return it, but then the voice rings out, the one Kai could make out anywhere, the one that makes him go weak at the knees and makes his heart beat far too fast.</p><p>“I need to speak to Kai.”</p><p>All the blood’s drained from Sophia’s face and her expression probably mirrors his own as he slams the door shut, sound rattling through the corridor in a way which means he can never pretend it was entirely coincidental and that he doesn’t know who’s on the other side of the door, once Mitch has left and Julian eventually knocks.</p><p>“What the fuck am I meant to do?” He whispers sharply, “how long has he been out there?  What has he heard?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” Sophia’s voice is as icy as the blood rushing through Kai’s veins, “I don’t know what he’s doing here.  But, um, Kai, this is probably not the best time to tell you that I have to go to class, is it?”</p><p>“No,” he begs, desperation obvious in his tone, “you can’t go.  You can’t leave me here with him.”</p><p>“It’s not like I have a choice.  We were speaking just half an hour ago about how strict my lecturer is.”</p><p>“Call in sick,” if he was sure it’d make her stay, Kai would feel zero remorse about collapsing to his knees and pleading with her like he’s a character in a shitty TV show, but he can just see it wouldn’t be worth it, she’s already moving to grab her bag, even as he tries to gently stop her.  “Soph, <em>please</em>.”</p><p>She shakes her head, “you need to speak to him.  Properly, and not just some small talk in passing before a game, and I just know that if I stayed, you’d force me to do all the talking and just wait for an opportunity to slip away, and that wouldn’t be fair on anyone.  Besides, if I was going to call in sick, I would’ve needed to have done so at least two hours ago.”</p><p>“Just---,” his brain isn’t working, he doesn’t know why Julian hasn’t knocked yet, mentally thanks Mitch for whatever conversing he’s doing and stalling the horrendous situation that might result in Kai and Julian being alone in a flat where they used to spend so many nights doing everything and nothing, nights when pain was a foreign concept and all they knew was each other, when they stretched the boundaries of what platonic could mean, yet they’re like an elastic band, deformed against the continuous strain, but still threatening to snap at any second.  “Don’t leave out of the front door.  Not with him there.”</p><p>“So instead, you want me to jump off your three-storey balcony,” Sophia rolls her eyes, throwing the door open, and Kai’s instantly greeted with those all-too-familiar blue eyes, and no sign of Mitch.  It doesn’t add up.  “I’ll see you later.”</p><p>“Bye,” he says inaudibly, because his voice box has completely shut down in Julian’s presence.  Two days ago, at least, there was the thrum of adrenaline to inspire his recklessness.  Now, there’s just the bitter sensation of being caught, and an overriding sense of loss.  The situation, Julian standing in his doorway staring at him, is just another scene from his photographic book of memories, if he eradicated the undercurrent of emotion and just took it from the visuals, it’d be unplaceable, it could be from a thousand different days, but once he takes the plunge and submerges himself, all of it, everything he doesn’t want to think about and spends his entire life turning over in his mind, it comes to the forefront of his mind again, and it’s so <em>foreign.</em></p><p>“Hi,” Julian says, stepping forward into the doorway, “can I come in?”</p><p>“No,” Kai shoots back, eyes flittering around the kitchen before falling on his kitbag he’d discarded by the shoe rack, “sorry, um, I’m about to head out, but what can I help you with?”</p><p>“I wanted to talk to you about what happened after the match---,”</p><p>From where he’s stuffing his feet into shoes that probably don’t even match, he glances up to Julian subconsciously, really <em>looks </em>at him, the golden-blonde hair, the way he holds himself, the scent that used to practically define Kai’s existence rising up and swallowing him, and already, his flat smells like it used to, and Julian hasn’t even properly come in yet.  Mutely, he wonders whether that fucking cushion foretold this scenario, and makes a mental note to burn its incrimination at the earliest possible opportunity.</p><p>“Okay, well, we definitely do not have time for that,” Kai’s voice has gone impossibly, embarrassingly squeaky as he finally wins the battle with his shoe, grabbing the bag and throwing it over his shoulder. </p><p>“Of course, we fucking don’t,” Julian mutters underneath his breath.  “We wouldn’t have time for it even if you were lying on your sofa watching Netflix.”</p><p>It feels like a callout.  It wouldn’t even be inaccurate.  He’s a fucking idiot, there’s no hiding that Kai’s lied to him and Julian’s uncovered his secret, but the least he can do is try and carry it on for the longest amount of time possible.  Pretending he didn’t hear Julian’s words, he sweeps past his former best friend, forcibly pulling the door closed behind him and locking it quickly.</p><p>“If you’d excuse me, I’ve got to go to training.  I’ll see you at the international break.”</p><p>He doesn’t wait for Julian to say anything, and prays the people on his floor are out because he sprints nosily down the corridor, almost falling down the stairs in his haste to escape Julian and the “KAI, WAIT, I KNOW YOU DON’T HAVE TRAINING---,” yells that waft through the air after him.</p><p>He sprints in the opposite direction of the training ground, hiding in a definitely dodgy alleyway probably a fucking mile from his flat, and tries to catch his breath.  Somehow, his weakness takes mercy on him, because he’s able to catch the waves of oxygen and not fall foul to the hell that is the panic attacks, trying not to think about how right it was to have Julian back in his flat.</p><p>Julian isn’t there when he finally goes back home.</p><hr/><p>
  <em> <strong>leverkusen, germany (two weeks later)</strong> </em>
</p><p>Kai isn’t sure how long they’ve been there, but once he realises the darkening of the clearing, it draws his attention from the flow of the water just long enough to notice the looming dark clouds gathering overhead.  If they threaten rain, he’s unbothered, it’s not too far from his apartment, or he could even take refuge in the training complex which is only a five-minute amble through a couple of bushes away.  They’d discovered this place last summer, an afternoon when the sun was beating down, when Julian’s ‘expert’ navigation skills had failed him as they tried to find a lake (which turned out to be three miles away in the other direction), and Sam had shoved Kai’s former best friend through the bushes, eliciting at first a stream of expletives and then a sudden yell of excitement.</p><p>Since then, they hadn’t really shown anyone, deeming it their private area of the city.  So few people even ever make their way down that mossy track, unless they’re trying to hike to the famed viewpoint that’s another mile ahead.  Yet even so, after that afternoon, after the water droplets in Kai’s hair after Julian had thrown him into the river had long since dried, if there was a lot on his mind, Kai would come here to think.</p><p>Perhaps that was the reason why there was such familiarity in the Barcelonan brook he’d found the morning of the transfer announcement.  It was the closest he could get to home.</p><p>Once, last winter when the water had frozen over and the ice was glinting in the white sunlight, he’d heard a rustling, much closer than the normal echo of voices of explorers, but by the time he’d managed to force his stiff limbs into turning his head, the culprit had long since vanished.  Every other time, he’d had nothing but blissful silence and the swish of the water as he swirled his toes in it during summer.  The sound does its best to relieve him of his stress from the inside, and if he closes his eyes, for a second, it almost feels like he’s back in the time when his only fear was if he’d come too quickly the next time Julian fucked him.</p><p>Honestly, he’d not sure why he hasn’t come back here sooner.  If it was because of the memories he’s got associated with this place, he could understand the unconscious thought process, but strangely, Julian’s name doesn’t sting here like it does in the outside world; where no one can see him, read his thoughts, give him those pitying looks he despises and mutter about how he should be getting over it by now.</p><p>He might have done more in that sense in the thirty minutes he’s been sat at the riverside than in the whole of the five months post-Julian.  There’s an opaque undertone of pride in his own thoughts.</p><p>His eyes flicker back to the trees opposite, the leaves beginning to scatter onto the ground as the autumn season rolls later, September melting into October, another international break a little under a week and only one Bundesliga matchday away, a break which will see him travel to Julian’s new home and see the attraction that prompted his heartbreak first-hand.  Yet, a tiny part of him is still instilled in the belief that he’ll be okay, so long as the surroundings don’t break the apathetic façade he’s still working on perfecting.</p><p>“There’s no way it’s down here--,” he overhears someone say, writing it off as one of the last stragglers of the summer season, until he starts at the voice’s next words, louder now, and the overwhelming familiarity of the whine.  Sophia. “I’m not climbing through another fucking bush.  I’ve been cut by those rose thorns, <em>look</em>!”</p><p>“You’ll live,” a different voice says, undoubtably Lotta, and if only Kai’s limbs would become supple as quickly as his brain, because there’s not a chance in hell that they’re not down here searching for him, “Mitch told me specifically it was down here.  Hey, look, it’s another clearing.”</p><p>There’s just about time to pull his socks over his wet feet and grab his shoes before Lotta, evidently because of Sophia’s plaintive comments, makes her way tentatively through the bush, obviously unaware of the slight path Kai has left through his countless times coming here.  It’s not like he can run, the bushes surrounding him are probably laced with stinging nettles and, if Sophia is to be believed, rosebushes, so he’s rooted to the spot awkwardly, practically waiting for her to dust herself down and realise he’s standing there.</p><p>“I found him!” Lotta calls, “do you want to come through?”</p><p>“Nope,” Sophia says, “I’ll wait out here.”</p><p>“What are you doing here?” Kai sighs once the blonde turns back to him, hope unconcealable on her face. </p><p>“We needed to find you; you’ve got somewhere to be!” She exclaims, and in no less time, she’s bounded over to him and has grasped his hand, pulling him towards the exit. </p><p>“Did I miss something at training?” Kai says, cursing as a thorn pricks him, she’d not taken his exit and he wasn’t paying enough attention to guide her, more so worrying about the hefty fine Lars will subject him to if he has. </p><p>“No,” Lotta says once they’re out of the clearing, his friend picking leaves out of her hair as Sophia smiles a greeting.  The two of them look kind of weird, biting down on their lips to try and tone down their grins, but Kai can still see the excitement behind their eyes.  They look, frankly, ridiculous, and that’s not even considering how he didn’t even know they knew each other.</p><p>“How do you two know each other?”</p><p>“You’re not very clever,” Sophia chastises with a laugh, “we met at the stadium, obviously!”</p><p>“Why didn’t you mention you were friends with Lotta?” He asks her.</p><p>“Didn’t want you to suspect anything,” Sophia says, and the excitement has completely dissipated from her features, replaced with something that borders nerves.  Lotta, meanwhile, still has her suppressed smile, and that’s a concept that terrifies Kai down to the core, because as lovely as Lotta is, Sophia knows him better, and they’ve blatantly been scheming together, yet he can see his older friend is suddenly a lot more cautious about his response.</p><p>If she’s cautious, that usually never bodes well for him.</p><p>“But anyway, we need to go, or we’re going to be late,” Lotta says, quieter than before, potentially sensing the sombre mood that’s settled between them. </p><p>“Late for what?” He asks.</p><p>“I’ll explain later,” Sophia mumbles, but she doesn’t meet his eyes as she slips her hand into him.  It triggers another warning siren, in addition to the ones that are already blaring in the back of his head; Mitch revealing their secret hideaway purely so Lotta and Sophia can track him down, the worrying body language of his closest friend, this.  Overall, with every step they take back towards civilisation, his concern gets bigger, so large it’ll crush him.</p><p>Normally, when he walks to and from the river, he’s already half-lost in his own thoughts he never notices how long the walk is.  Now, though, with him hyperaware of Sophia trailing next to him, and the fear of retreating into his own head due to what the girls have lined up for him, he realises just how long it is.</p><p>He tries to focus on the flowers he passes, wilting slightly as their once-vivid petals litter the floor.  It’s all like that, the leaves from the trees, the flower petals, his heart; destroying themselves.  And one day, just like them, maybe his heart will regrow.  Maybe he can make his own spring.</p><p>“You okay?  You’re quiet,” Sophia whispers as she and him climb into the backseat of Lotta’s car.  Kai hadn’t even realised they’d made it back to the training ground, hopes that Bosz or another member of the senior staff isn’t lingering.</p><p>“Same could be said for you,” he tries to shoot back, but the joking snide isn’t there.  “Seriously, Soph, please, what is going on?”</p><p>“Should I tell him?” She asks Lotta, who’s driving, pulling out into the main road. </p><p>“Now that I’m actually moving, yeah.”</p><p>“You have to promise that you’re not going to do anything stupid, like jump out of the car while Lotta’s driving.”</p><p>“That just makes me think it’s something that would make me want to do that.”  There’s no wit in his voice, his tone sounding vaguely threatening, but judging by the way Sophia doesn’t even flinch, she must have been expecting it.</p><p>“At the thought of it, you probably will want to,” Lotta says, offering just as little bullshit as Sophia does.  And really, if they can form a nice little friendship through their mutual association with him, then at least that’s one good thing he’s achieved in his lifetime.  “But you need to know that this is what’s best for you.”</p><p>Kai doesn’t recognise the road Lotta turns onto.  They’re not in the city centre anymore, with every hundred metres she drives the amount of people on the streets decreases, Kai staring out of the window because he cannot beat to look at either of them while they talk about their joint revelation.</p><p>“What is it, then?”</p><p>“We’re taking you to therapy,” Sophia blurts out, and it’s almost insulting to those who need it, the worry on her face, the assertion that he’s going to be disgusted at the very concept.  He’s not, it’s a wonderful service put on for those who need it, and it’s <em>that </em>thought that wallops him in the head.  The thought that he’s someone who needs it.</p><p>He throws that apathetic façade directly into the bin.</p><p>“I’m going to be seen.  You know I can’t go out here without someone recognising me,” he pleads to Sophia, “fucking hell, I’ve seen three kids with my shirt during this drive <em>alone</em>.”</p><p>He’s so busy focusing on her, appealing to her weaker, compassionate side that he doesn’t want to, <em>can’t</em>, do this here, he doesn’t even notice Lotta shaking her head until she speaks.</p><p>“It’s very discreet, very out of the way.  Most people don’t even know it’s here unless they’re referred.”</p><p>“You make it sound like a mental hospital,” he cuts.  “And anyway, I could still get recognised by the people inside the fucking building.  Or, you know, the <em>therapist</em>.”  He’s emphasising his words, needing to get through to them, he’s half tempted to beg on his knees once Lotta parks up and Sophia lets go of his leg.</p><p>“No,” Lotta says, “We’ve spoken with them already.  You’ll go straight into the room, or be able to wait somewhere else if they can’t see you instantly, and the actual staff aren’t allowed to talk about anyone who goes there, let alone you, even though Sophia made it clear that it absolutely cannot get out into the public knowledge.  Confidentiality and all that.”</p><p>“And how do you know I can trust them?” Kai says as Lotta drives through the public carpark; Kai’s view blocked so he’s just about to call her out for driving them straight into a wall when she stops in front of a gate Kai didn’t notice before.  Within an instant, they’re passing through, into another section with signs plastered all over the walls of names of the staff.</p><p>“The person who will be treating you is an old friend of mine.”</p><p>Kai knows Lotta’s words are meant to comfort him, but all he can think of is her heritage, her upbringing, and who exactly she knew when she was younger.</p><p>“From Bremen?”</p><p>“Fuck, I should’ve known that would’ve scared the shit out of you,” she says, pulling into a parking space, “no.  It’s one of my old flatmates from university.  They don’t know Julian beyond watching football on the TV.”</p><p>“I’m going to out my feelings to someone random who knows exactly who I’m talking about?”</p><p>“What did I literally just tell you about confid---,” Lotta begins, but she’s cut off by Sophia, who Kai hadn’t noticed had fallen quiet during his panicked altercation,</p><p>“Kai, you’re being a dick.  She literally just said they’re not allowed to mention anything.”</p><p>The sharpness of her words resembles a pin prick, but his explosion isn’t violent, with a comic bang, it’s more a slow, pitiful deflation, the kind that leaves him unwilling to even undo his seatbelt and get out of the car, to where the staff are already waiting for him.  He can see the back door of the building open, and Lotta darts out, bringing the waiting man into a hug.</p><p>“You’ll be okay,” Sophia says, much gentler, the kind of tone mothers use to calm their distressed toddlers, “Lotta and I are going to be waiting here, so if anything goes really wrong, we’re here for you.  But, please, try and be cooperative.”</p><p>“Thanks,” he says.  Deep down, he genuinely means it, but if it wasn’t for her, he wouldn’t even have made it here.  If she responds, he doesn’t hear it, the rush of blood in his ears drowning out anything as he approaches the man with Lotta, head ducked out of habit when he’s trying to avoid being seen.</p><p>“We’ll go inside,” the man says, and Kai isn’t looking to know who the comment is directed at, but judging by the way Lotta slaps him lightly on the back and begins to head back to the car, it must be him, and the next thing he’s got to try and figure out is how to get into the consultant room without tripping due to the way his legs have began shaking beyond fucking belief.</p><p>He almost falls off the chair in his attempts to get onto it.  The therapist, though, only laughs slightly, prompting Kai to finally look at him, and, despite all Kai’s premonitions that have surged in the past fifteen minutes, he’s a little comforted.  There’s a calmness behind his eyes, the kind of look he tends to see in Sophia; the one person who he really trusts with the depths of his feelings to any significant degree.</p><p>“Hello,” the therapist says quietly, “lovely to meet you, Herr Havertz.”</p><p>“You too,” he chokes out, hating the way he bites his words.  “Call me Kai, um, please.”</p><p>“Of course.  I’m Doctor Hofmann, but a lot of my patients prefer to call me Hans.  It’s your choice.”</p><p>Kai knows he’s not the biggest social butterfly going, Julian was always better at the personable shit, but he always thought he was at least passable.  Evidently, his faith in himself must have been misplaced, because while Hans is smiling at him, probably expecting some kind of acknowledgement, Kai’s pretty sure he’s forgotten how to even fucking speak his own mother language.</p><p>“Oh, um, cool,” he stutters eventually, viscerally cringing.  He’s not even been in there five minutes, yet his fingers are already drifting closer to the panic button that is Sophia’s phone number, and it’s only the disappointed look he can picture on her face that forces him to ram his phone back into his pocket and meet the gaze of Hans.  “I’m sorry, I’m, um, fuck---,”</p><p>“It’s okay to be nervous,” Hans says, voice belying how he isn't fazed by Kai’s minor outburst. “I get some patients that don’t even get as far as introducing themselves on their first session.  We will take as much time as you need.”</p><p>Kai presumes he should thank him, so he does, feeling his cheeks turn scarlet when Hans simply waves away his words.  “Can you, just, um, explain how this is supposed to work?  I don’t know if you know, but, um, Lotta and Sophia kind of sprung this on me, so I’m not really prepared or anything--,”</p><p>“Of course,” Hans smiles.  “Lotta and I have already worked out a schedule that won’t impact on any of your commitments with your team, and the last thing I want to do is overwhelm you, which is why I propose you only have one session a week.”</p><p>“That sounds okay,” he gets out, willing his voice to stay level, “but I’m supposed to go to Dortmund next week, and Tallinn the week after, and I can’t exactly come back for the sessions.” He’d got the official call up from Lӧw that morning, hence his worried elope to his now not-secret hideaway.</p><p>“I know, nor do I expect you to.  That’s why your next sessions are booked in for after you get back, but here’s my number in case you need it for any reason while you’re away.  I can’t promise to always get back to you instantly, obviously, but I’ll try my best to respond fast enough to be of help.”</p><p>“Okay,” Kai mumbles, nodding a thank you.  Despite the efforts he can sense Hans is putting into trying to relax him, there’s still an overt sense of unease and it’s only a matter of time before the therapist cannot ignore it too, and then he’ll give up on Kai and his habit of shoving people away just like Kai knows he would’ve done if someone else had treated him like he’s treated others.  The man in front of him is only temporary, immediately replaceable, and Kai wonders if it’s the life in football that has given him such a stoic outlook, or the context behind his reason for being here.  When he doesn’t have control, he’s more prone to admitting things he doesn’t want others to know, or doesn’t want himself to accept, which is why he knows just how much of his distrust and subliminal anger was sparked by the way Julian left.</p><p>But Julian’s practically an abstract now, unattainable and unreachable from his shiny new home, and all Kai’s got left are a couple of girls who are practically running his life, and Jannis who knows his biggest secret and shares half his fucking genes with the cause.  Briefly, Kai wonders if he’s really the abstract, especially given how Julian turned up at his flat a couple of weeks ago and Kai essentially told him to fuck off, but that’s just a wall Julian laid the foundations for.  Kai just added the bricks and mortar, and it’s landed him here.</p><p>“I can trust you, right?” He blurts out, because even with Lotta’s words earlier, there’s a part of him that just doesn’t believe anything anyone says if it’s second hand. </p><p>“Absolutely.  I’d have no reason to expose anything you said, but as well as it being a serious breach of your trust, it would get me fired.  I’ve wanted to be a therapist since I was a teenager, I’m not going to ruin that just for fifteen minutes of fame and an article in BILD.”</p><p>Kai almost laughs at that, but he stops himself.  Somehow, with the sterile white walls and the plastic anatomical models of brains on Hans’ desk, laughter feels out of place.</p><p>And Hans might as well be a fucking mind reader, because he’s suddenly talking about how laughter is very much welcome and how it’s some of the best medicine available for prescription and trailing off into a completely unrelated spiel (a trait that Julian used to have).  If it wasn’t for the fact his voice naturally puts Kai at some sort of relative ease, the moment he started noticing the numerous similarities to his former best friend he would’ve bolted.</p><p>Unless he’s projecting, which, knowing him, is also a very likely possibility.</p><p>“I have to start by asking, what brings you here?”</p><p>The defensive instincts he has are immediately spiked as he detects the obvious double-edged sword in Hans’ words, but somehow, he manages to fend off the threat of a deflective comment about the girls.  His presence here was their doing, but really, he’d have told anyone else to do the same.</p><p>“I’ve just---,” he manages to get out before his lungs forget their function for the first time since he entered the room.  He’d almost forgotten his tendency to be an absolutely massive fuck up in the relaxing environment Hans had created, but it’s now he’s reminded of the symptoms his brick wall has imposed on him.  He can’t talk about himself unless his inhibitions have been suppressed, and his body is subconsciously fighting to keep himself away from that place with every last ounce of energy.  “I don’t know.”</p><p>Weirdly, Hans doesn’t berate him for pussying out of giving a proper answer.  He merely nods, Kai notices when he garners enough courage to give a fleeting look to the other man.  Everyone else would’ve scolded him by now or shaken their heads and muttered underneath their breath about how he’s not doing himself any favours.  Hans’ reaction is an unsurprising, yet utterly shocking concept.</p><p>“Okay, we’ll start somewhere else.  Has anything happened to you recently that may have activated the behaviour that caused Miss Schneider and Miss Weber to come to me?”</p><p>Julian.  The entire saga flashes through his eyes, scarily reminiscent of those scenes in shitty movies where a character’s life is dramatically recounted by way of a silent, hurried cinematic reel.  Every second of it, Julian’s eyes are depicted as this bright, innocent blue, his name circling around his mind.  His words have triggered the sensitive sirens that attach to his former best friend’s name to begin wailing.  </p><p>But he doesn’t want to talk about him, doesn’t want Hans to divulge into the extent of what he and Julian had and how unconventional the ending was, let alone allow him to see how Kai’s feelings stained an unmoving grey stripe across it all.  Instead, even though he knows it doesn’t really answer what Hans is asking, he merely says, “panic attacks.”</p><p>He’s innately grateful how the other man takes the lead for what it is.</p><p>“Okay, what kind of attack are you experiencing?”</p><p>“I can’t really explain,” he stumbles, but it’s not exactly untrue.  He enters a completely different headspace, particularly in ones where he feels everything wash over him like he’s drowning, and even thinking about it causes his entire nervous system to go into overdrive.  “It’s bad.”</p><p>Hans nods, the scrabble of his pen working quickly against the notepad Kai didn’t notice before, and he’s too busy staring at his name written in block capitals on the top of the sheet, the self-shame that he’s had to resort to this, that he doesn’t realise the other man has finished writing and is gazing at him expectantly.</p><p>“Anything else?”</p><p>“I don’t like them,” he says, like a small child, only a couple of tones away from plaintive.  “I just want to know how I can make them stop.”</p><p>“We can work on that, don’t worry.”</p><p>“Yeah,” he echoes weakly, because some part of him oddly hates the reminder that he’s here to get better, when two weeks ago he was so oblivious to his own condition he was barely aware there was anything to get better from.  They all know he’d accepted it as his new normal, and they’d all plotted behind his back to prevent him from falling into a pit that he would never clamber out of.</p><p>“Are you okay, Kai?” Hans asks, and that’s all the confirmation Kai needs that he isn’t going to be able to retreat into the overtly safe comfort zone that is his own mind (it’s even warm when he forgets there’s a million swords hidden behind the polystyrene walls, ready to impale and kill him if he relies on the structure too much).  He knows the other man doesn’t mean any harm by it, but the wave of realisation only serves to freak him out.</p><p>He’s back to being worse than he was before he stepped into the building.</p><p>“I’m okay,” he says, clocking the fact that Hans doesn’t believe him for a nanosecond.  It’s aggravating, not least to the fact they’re all just trying to help him, but, just for the slightest of moments, he can’t keep himself from hating his new therapist.</p><p>Or, simply, he might just be projecting again.  It’s <em>himself </em>he hates, despises more than anyone else on the planet bar none, hates how he’s chosen to take this path to respond to something that, really, happens all the damn time, people get separated, people’s friends leave every single day, footballers transfer clubs every six months, other players are left behind and once the fans have got over the initial shock, they move on to.  If Mitch is to be believed, the rest of the squad are already completely used to not having Julian in their ranks for the first time since 2014, and while they’re embracing their new arrivals and new identity, Kai’s stuck in a psychiatrist’s office discussing things that only happened because of that completely normal phenomenon.</p><p>“I don’t think you are.”</p><p>The taste of blood runs over Kai’s tongue from how hard he has to bite down on his lip to conceal the rising snarky comment.  His fingers reach for his phone out of Hans’ sight, sending nothing more than just ‘I need to get out of here’ to Sophia.</p><p>“Sorry,” he chokes out, “I’m not ready for this.  I--- can’t,” <em>fuck</em>, “do this.  I’m sorry, I’m sure you’re great, I just--- I didn’t want this.”</p><p>“That’s completely okay, I get a lot of people say that on their first session,” Hans says, completely unbothered by how panicked Kai must sound, “but I truly think there’s a lot of ways I can help you, Kai.  You’ve got my number, so if you need me during the international break, just drop me a message, and take the time to mull it over, but, and I’m not just saying this because of my pay check, you can get better, you just need some help getting there.”</p><p>“Okay, thank you, see you soon,” he stammers, mumbling an apology for how rude he’s being and barely remembering to grab his jacket before he half-runs out of the room, out of the building, almost slap-bang into the car door because he forgets to open it.  “Drive.  Please, Lotta, just get me the fuck away from here.”</p><p>Part of him thinks she’s going to protest, demand an explanation before she presses down on the accelerator, but to her everlasting credit, she leaves, and Kai can feel Sophia’s eyes burning into the back of his head as he stares pointedly out of the window as they head back towards the city centre.  He doesn’t want to look at her, doesn’t want her to see the slight traces of tears he can feel developing in his tear ducts, doesn’t want the overly concerned questions about how the session was.  He just wants to hate himself for putting her through this and being a let down for all her hopes, purely because he can’t handle talking about his feelings.</p><p>Just like on the way to the therapists, he passes several people on the streets bedecked in his shirt.  He still remembers the first time it ever happened, during his first year in the senior team, he’d been in a cafe, hiding in the corner as Julian and Jannis had some brotherly bickering match about something trivial, when a baby had begun crying a couple of tables over.  Instinctively, Kai had looked up, and next to the pram was a boy, maybe about five, in a Leverkusen shirt, who turned towards his dad, and that’s when Kai saw his own name written in bold letters across the back.  His stomach had maybe flipped thrice.</p><p>Now, everyone seems to have his fucking shirt.  They all seem to love him, even when the mere thought of stepping into their, <em>his</em>, stadium is starting to make him physically ill.  That’s worse than all, because he’d always thought he’d have football when everything else in his life turned to shit, and now even that’s slipping away from him.</p><p>He slips his eyes shut for the rest of the journey.  Not to try and sleep, god knows his heart is beating too irregularly and his stomach is all scrunched up in a way that mutely resembles pain to even consider being drowsy, but at least no one can see the emotions in his eyes.</p><p>“We’re here,” Sophia says, and Kai hadn’t even realised she’d stopped talking until he realises how out-of-place her voice sounds in the silence.  “Do you want me to come in with you?”</p><p>“No thank you,” he gasps, bounding out of the car and distinctly not looking at whatever looks Lotta and Sophia decide to shoot at each other.  “I’m sorry, both of you.  I let you both down.”</p><p>They’re just about to question him when he slams the car door shut.  Sophia just watches him go, maybe, deep down, she knows that’s what he needs.</p><p>He collapses down onto his bed, screaming his lungs out until he vomits.  The exhaustion he’s suffering is so guttural, he doesn’t even bother to move.</p><p>• • • • • •</p><p>“Fucking hell,” Bosz says, “it’s been three days and you sound even worse than before.”</p><p>“I feel it,” Kai replies, falling against the bedsheets as his eyes scan the pizza box that he’d discarded on the floor the night before.  “I’m sorry.”</p><p>“You do realise I can’t wait any longer, you’re not going to be in the matchday squad this week.”</p><p>“Okay,” he answers, not even disappointed.  There’s no way he’d justify his place on the field when he hasn’t even stepped foot in the training complex in half a week.  “I’ll just let you know when I’m feeling better.”</p><p>“Are you going to withdraw from the national team?”</p><p>“I’m leaning towards it.”</p><p>“Okay, well, kid, you keep me updated on that.  I’ve got to go,” his coach says, “get well soon.”</p><p>“Thanks, bye,” Kai says, letting the phone fall against the duvet, line dead.  His body gives out again, wrapping itself into the delicate warmth he’s managed to create, legs tucked into his arms.  He’s barely left since he collapsed into it after his therapy session, save to answer the door for the food deliveries, and while he might not be actually sick anymore, his mind is shot to pieces.  Training sounds like hell on earth, especially in the shadows of the BayArena.</p><p>Sophia has texted him a couple of times, which forced him to serve her brunt, brutal honesty, but she’s stayed away.  He didn’t tell her about the sick.  The last thing he wants is for her to storm over and demand to know everything, because he doesn’t want to break, doesn’t want to confess anything anymore.</p><p>He can keep it all a secret.  Julian, his feelings, the therapy, all of it can be locked into the minefield that is his mind and no one has to know all the things he’s going through.  It seems stupid to think, when they’ve already uncovered so much about him, but maybe he’s tired of feeling like a rotten carcass, maybe he’s tired of being the guy that everyone has to fucking protect.</p><p>Last season feels a million years ago.  How everything just seemed to work back then, he was living a teenage dream, scoring goals and getting fucked by Julian and practically feeling every single person fall in love with him.  Now, the love is turning to dissatisfaction, disappointment, and he’s going to be labelled as a one-season-wonder, useless, and all the clubs that were circling will withdraw their interest as quick as it came.  That’s how it works in football.  That’s what he’s destined for.</p><p>He can already imagine the headlines, the articles published in five, ten, fifteen years’ time about what happened to Kai Havertz, once touted as the greatest young talent Germany had, maybe one day someone will bother to look into him and maybe they’ll trace back deep enough to locate his sessions with Hans, maybe Hans won’t suffer a conflict of interest and maybe he’ll go public with the stories Kai hates he knows he’ll tell eventually, Kai’ll get outed, and that’ll be it for him.  That’ll be it for Julian, because he’ll be caught in the crossfire, and fuck, he really would never forgive himself for that.</p><p>It’s a horrifically fantastical picture of his future, but, from where he is, stuck in a bed while his teammates sweat out on the field a few miles away, it couldn’t seem closer to the truth.</p><p>The worst part is, one day, he won’t be able to simply deflect the blame onto Julian anymore.  One day, he’ll see Julian kiss someone else for the millionth time, and he’ll realise that, for the first time, it doesn’t hurt.  The first time he sees it, the second, it might be the closest he’s come to dying since the second his Twitter feed announced the news back in May, but there’ll be a time when he doesn’t even occur to the man that he used to spend almost every night with.  When he won’t mean anything to anyone, let alone himself.</p><p>The prospect of that day is petrifying beyond belief.  That’ll be the day there’s no hope for him.  He might be able to climb out of the slump he’s in now, but the soft mud is caving underneath his feet, and when it collapses in on itself, sending him plummeting down the bottomless pit until he can’t even see the light.  He can’t let that happen to himself, but judging by his state, the possibility grows with every second he doesn’t fucking get better.</p><p>He wishes there was a medicine he could take to numb the pain of heartbreak, could patch his heart up and prevent it from shattering over and over again, every morning when he wakes up and still catches the faintest trace of Julian on the pillow next to him.  He keeps telling himself it isn’t healthy, yet he’s so desensitised to certain phrases it’s making him worse. </p><p>He isn’t expecting anyone, but his curiosity is piqued when he hears the buzzer blare, the culprit not giving up.  Weakly, he answers,</p><p>“Hello?”</p><p>“Hey bro, it’s Jan.  Can I come up?”</p><p>“Jan?” Kai hasn’t seen his brother since March, he’s been too busy with his job and planning his wedding, and he had no idea he was in Cologne.  Stuffing the incriminating evidence of his moping into the nearest bin, he lets his brother in, heart beating weirdly fast as he waits for him to find his flat.</p><p>“Hey,” Jan says again, once he’s made it and has finished squashing Kai in his hug, “I wasn’t expecting you to be here, I thought you’d be at training.”</p><p>“I’ve been ill recently.”</p><p>“That’s why I haven’t been seeing you in any of the Leverkusen training photos,” his brother smiles gently, “but, kid, you look okay?  What’s going on?”</p><p>Sometimes, Kai despises being the youngest.  Jan witnessed all his childish tantrums, knows all the little details of his personality; he used to say how he knew Kai was getting picked on back at school because of the way his shoulders would hunch, how he grew late so he just tried to act like he didn’t exist at all.  There were many lunchtimes when Jan would have to defend him from that, many evenings when Kai would overhear his older brother and his mother in the kitchen, her voice cracking as she asked him questions about what ‘they’ said to Kai today.  As if it was some sort of thank you, Kai upped and left at ten years old, went to go and achieve the dream that was always slightly out of reach for Jan.</p><p>“Just a cold,” he lies, “I’m getting better.”</p><p>“Do you have a coffee machine?” Jan asks, and for a second Kai thinks he’s almost magically improved in the art of lying, listening to the boiling water and the hiss of steam as his brother pours himself a mug, walking to the sofa like he owns the place.  Kai perches awkwardly on the armrest, stifling a laugh when Jan burns his tongue on his drink, but still, the sound of his brother placing the mug on the table is too distinct, too purposeful to be coincidence.  Their conversation isn’t done, and it’s, once again, on the only topic that seems to define Kai’s life now.  Julian, and how the forbidden love he has for his former best friend has rotted him to the core.  “Have you forgotten how well I know you?”</p><p>“No,” Kai swallows, trying to hold his gaze.  With every second his lie has to spread between them, it becomes more difficult, until the pressure is pressing down on his shoulders.</p><p>“So, what are you getting out of lying to me?  Didn’t mum tell you not to lie to anyone, especially your family?”</p><p>“She did,” he answers weakly.  “I’m not lying.”</p><p>“Just missing out the important bits of the truth,” Jan says, sipping at his coffee.  He’s so nonchalant, raising his eyebrows like some sort of over theatrical performance, because this is always what he used to do to worm his way into Kai’s secrets; his first crush in Grundschule, how he managed to skip past the oldest kid in school who was also the best defender during one of the school games, and if he’d known Jan was going to visit, he’d have had more time to prepare for this onslaught.  Instead, he’s scrambling and barely covering the cracks that are forming in the treasure chest that hold his secrets.</p><p>Somewhere, in the distant alcoves of his head, he can still hear that damn fucking time bomb, still ticking down.  He doesn’t think it’ll explode in his brother’s presence.  Really, he should be relieved.</p><p>“I just don’t have shit figured out and it’s scaring me.” In some convoluted way, it’s the most truthful thing he’s said since Jan arrived, but if his words could manifest themselves into some physical entity, it’d be a brick wall with the tiniest hole in the centre.  In his surveillance, Jan must miss the opening.</p><p>“What do you not have figured out?”</p><p>“What I’m going to do--,” he says, almost impressed by the sudden resurgence of his ability to lie on the spot, the ability he only ever seemed to have when Julian was questioning him awkwardly and he was trying not to belie how fucked he was for him.  “You must know I’m going to leave Bayer at the end of the season.”</p><p>“Everyone knows that,” Jan smiles back, “but yeah, that’ll be weird.  You’ve had that crest on your chest for almost as long as you’ve kicked a fucking ball.”</p><p>“Yeah,” he sighs weakly, awkwardly, and he would be panicking if it didn’t fit perfectly in the context of what he’s trying to fake.  Bayer have given him everything, he wouldn’t have met Julian, Sophia, Lotta, any of the people who seem to force his life to still be circulating, chances are he’d be studying something at university somewhere in Germany and not-so-secretly imagining what it’d be like to have sex with Julian.  Where he wouldn’t have to hide who he is, and he’d attend matches with his mates, and he’d have a <em>Brandt </em>shirt, and he’s terrified to think how that would be less forlorn, less tragically hopeless than his actual reality.</p><p>“Do you know where you’re going to go?”</p><p>He shakes his head, “there’s so many clubs, and all I seem to get tagged in on Instagram are speculations of me going to Barcelona, Munich, Liverpool, Dortmund,” he just about gets the last one out without breaking down into a coughing fit or a bout of sobs, both emotions as blatantly obvious to their connotation as the other, but Jan picks up on it anyway.  “It’s a bit early to have serious talks, but there’s little things going on.”</p><p>Jan nods stoically, “any preferences?”</p><p>“None at the moment,” he says.  If things had been different, there’s a part of him that wants to shoot back the name of the club who inadvertently caused all of this, because the probably fucking infallible love in him wants to be back by Julian’s side, but he could never go while they’re like this.  Even if they weren’t, he might never go anyway.  He’s honest when he says he doesn’t know his future, and at this point, he can just add it to the endless list of question marks.</p><p>“Make sure you keep us updated,” Jan says, slightly sterner than Kai expected, “mum’s being going crazy because you haven’t been texting her and you’ve suddenly disappeared from training.”</p><p>“Fuck,” Kai says, turning on his phone, and for the first time since he returned from that shitshow of a therapy session, he properly <em>looks </em>at the screen, at the messages dotted on the screen, the increasing panic exhibited by his mother, “she’s not mad, is she?”</p><p>“Mad, maybe not, worried, definitely.”</p><p>Kai doesn’t answer, sends off a brief cover-up text, tries to ignore the invasive steel in Jan’s gaze.  He spends way more time reading his mother’s seven-word response than it really needs, purely because he knows this conversation is sitting firmly in his older brother’s hands, and when that happens, whenever he’s felt himself losing control of happenings, he always ends up admitting things he stays awake cringing over hours later, or losing all semblance of himself entirely.</p><p>But he can’t stay in his evasive limbo forever, so he glances back up.  Jan takes his action for millions more than it’s worth.</p><p>“When do you go back to training?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” he mumbles, trying not to sound sullen and barely managing.  “When I’m feeling better, I guess.”</p><p>“If my assumptions are correct, this is some sort of mental issue you’re dealing with, right?”</p><p>His silence is initially weightless enough to prompt Jan to delicately press him, repeating his question with tenfold awkwardness, and something in his composure breaks down, like it always does, and he’s painfully obvious.</p><p>“Do you want to talk about it?”</p><p>“No,” he shoots back, “if there’s something I do not want to do, it is talking about <em>what </em>caused this.  I’m fucking sick of it.”</p><p>“Hey, calm down,” Jan says, standing, brotherly authority appearing thick and fast into his voice, to the point it almost resembles a telling-off from his father.  Then, something on Kai’s face must change, because Jan’s expression softens, and the grip he has on Kai’s shoulder is gentle, concerned, nothing like whatever it was that was in his voice seconds prior.  “We don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to, so not what caused it, but why don’t you want to go back to training?”</p><p>“I just---,” he begins, unsure of how to answer a question that might just be all he ever gets asked rephrased, but something minute, indescribable, gives him the idea that it might not be.  “There’s something about football that just feels wrong?”</p><p>“Because of the fact you don’t know what’s going to happen to your career?”</p><p>“No questions about that!” Kai reminds him sharply, talking over the instinctive apology Jan lets out, “it’s just, at first it seemed like football was my only escape from feeling so shit, but now even that’s not true and I can’t deal with this constant fear of what everyone’s saying, all the whistling that the fans are directing at me, and not even football is fun anymore.”</p><p>“Everyone said you didn’t deserve that.”</p><p>“It still happened, they hate me, Jan.”</p><p>“It’s not black and white.  You above all people should know how impatient football fans can be,” his brother says, and there’s another freaky moment where Kai really feels the age gap in the room.  He’s not sure precisely what life experience Jan would’ve gotten in the last couple of years that make him appear so much wiser, but then again, he doesn’t exactly provide stiff competition in that department.  “The moment you start scoring again, they’ll go back to loving you just like they did before.”</p><p>“It just seems so unfair,” Kai whines, “why don’t they support me no matter what I do?  Can’t they see I’m just not in the right headspace right now?”  He says it anyway, even though he spent the entirety of the journey back from therapy lamenting if they ever found out – but Jan doesn’t need to know that.  If he wants to be a walking hypocrite, the least he can do is be cunning enough to avoid suspicion.  That’s roughly when the guilt begins to settle in, he can see it in Jan’s face even though he knows his brother will never say it, because he’s one of the luckiest people in the world.  He’s never going to have to worry about money, and he has a select few fucking good friends, a supportive family, and more fame than he could even begin to know what to do with.</p><p>“I think it’s the transfer rumours,” Jan says, obviously oblivious to what that word is synonymous with in the treacherous perils of Kai’s mind.  “They think, because you’re not actively shutting down all the rumours you mentioned, that you’re not committed to the club.  I know you, and I know that you’ll be eighty years old and still loving Leverkusen with your entire heart, but I also know you’re going to end up somewhere else, probably sooner than you might be willing to think about.”</p><p>“It just keeps coming, even when I don’t want it to,” he mutters, not knowing if his older brother can hear him, or if he even gives a shit either way.  At the almost-silent questioning mumble, Jan assents Kai’s first suspicion.  He sounds like the embodiment of every teenage-film cliché when he answers, “the future.”</p><p>“You can’t stop it, Kai.  You always lived at a million miles an hour--,” Jan cuts himself off, smiling softly, almost forlorn for a childhood that’s really long gone from both of them now, “this isn’t something I expected from you.”</p><p>“It isn’t something I expected from myself,” he says, weirdly choked up.  There’s gentle silence, finally not imbued with pain or tension, more a silent farewell for everything they had growing up, and it’s altogether the wrong time for Kai’s mind to drift elsewhere, but all of a sudden, he’s reaching for his phone on the kitchen counter, hurriedly excusing himself to make a call.</p><p>“Who?  Is it mum?”</p><p>“No,” he says, hoping the internal conflict between the side screaming that should tell Jan and the side arguing for the precautions of doing so is resolved quickly.  It is, and he blurts it out, “I need to call Lӧw to withdraw from the national team.”</p><p>“Because you’re scared of playing?”</p><p>He nods, unable to meet his older brother’s eyes.  He utterly despises how idiotic his reasoning sounds in a voice that isn’t doused in the despondency of his own, “the last thing I want to do is play, especially not in the fucking national team with a load of people who only know what’s going on through gossip.”</p><p>“I don’t think you should do that,” Jan says, and weirdly, if his voice was more emotional, it’d be less convincing.  Instead, it’d be flat if it wasn’t imperative.  It wouldn’t make Kai stop dead in his tracks.</p><p>“Why not?”</p><p>“The Kai I knew would never dream of turning down the opportunity to play for the national team,” Jan says, and just as Kai’s about to voice the obvious, cutting response, he’s cut off.  “I remember the days when you’d run around in that national team shirt you stole from me, pretending to be Klose or Ӧzil.  Back when you used to stay up way too late talking nonstop about how you were going to play for Germany one day, and you wouldn’t even shut up about it when mum’s friends would dismiss you with a simple ‘that’s lovely, sweetheart.’”</p><p>Something stirs in Kai’s chest, something akin to wistfulness, because he definitely remembers hot summer afternoons doing exactly what Jan’s reminiscing about, and if he thinks hard enough, can almost feel the hem of the too-big shirt rubbing against his knees, can almost hear his laughter ringing out into the air.  He doesn’t move, but he does slip his phone into his back pocket.</p><p>“The Kai I knew would never miss an opportunity to simply just play football.  Hey, remember the time you threw yourself off the sofa because you wanted to be able to fly like Harry Potter, and then broke your arm?  I seem to remember a certain tantrum you threw being more about the fact mum told you that you weren’t allowed to play football for six weeks than the actual injury itself.  You must have only been about seven.”</p><p>“Shut up,” Kai feels his cheeks go hot, but he can’t deny that he’s giggling slightly, even when he’s trying to convince his brother that he’s serious about his withdrawal plans.  Yet, he doesn’t know how simple that’d be when he’s getting less sure himself with every passing second.  “I also just don’t want to face the fans.”</p><p>“Because they hate you so much, right?” Jan says, standing up and holding his hand out almost theatrically.  “Unlock your phone and give it.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“You’ll see,” and honestly, Kai’s a little intrigued, so he actually follows orders for once, eyes following the screen meticulously.  Even with the unspoken promise of help, there’s still the little part of him that doesn’t trust his older brother, purely because of their familial connection.  His heart skips nervously when Jan opens Instagram.</p><p>“What are you doing?”</p><p>“We’re going to look through your direct messages, and I’m going to prove just how many people love you.”</p><p>“Jan, don’t--,” he struggles against the age advantage his older brother imposes, scrabbling for his phone.  “They’re all going to be hate comments, why are you doing this to---,”</p><p>“Hey, Kai!” Jan says, the perkiness to his voice implying he’s reading something, “you’ll probably never see this but I wanted to tell you how much you inspired me to fight against the sexist comments I get when I play football against guys at my school, because you’re an amazing player.  I really look up to you.”</p><p>“You’re making that up,” Kai fires back, because their wrestling match means he isn’t able to see the phone itself.  “No one said that to me.”</p><p>“No,” with that, the phone’s stuffed in his face, the black text blurring in the quickness of it all.  After a couple of laborious blinks, he comes to realise that the message, written in English surprisingly, says exactly what Jan read.  “There’s thousands more.”</p><p>“This girl’s English,” Kai protests, trying anything to fuel his argument.  “She doesn’t count in terms of the national team.”</p><p>“Fans are fans, right?  But, if you’re going to be that picky, let’s find a German one.”</p><p>Gently, Kai feels himself slip down the sofa, his brother next to him, as they flicker through the throngs of messages, more coming through with every refresh, German, English, Spanish, languages that don’t use the Roman alphabet that he couldn’t even begin to comprehend.  There’s the occasional hate comment that Kai knows his predisposition to focus on those, but for every one of those, there’s five saying how much they love him, how inspirational he is, well wishes to return to his previous form that don’t seem laced with disappointment or hostility, and eventually, he starts typing out little ‘thank yous,’ unable to hide the smile on his face when he gets the subsequent shocked replies.</p><p>There’s one name that keeps catching his eye as he scrolls through the requests page, deliberately making sure he doesn’t click on it in Jan’s presence, even though there’s no way his older brother would’ve missed it.  It only really keeps his attention due to the messages about Julian, which is something he also doesn’t want to divulge into with his brother.</p><p>As if his brother can read his mind and is living to terrorise him, he speaks, “how’s Julian?  He used to practically live here?”</p><p>“Our friendship kind of fizzled out after he moved to Dortmund,” Kai says, not strictly lying.  He simply omits the massive amount he had to do with this new truth.  “It happens.”</p><p>“That sucks.  You two seemed really close.”</p><p>“We were, but I guess friendship’s harder when your schedules don’t align.”</p><p>“You should go and see him.  Hey, it’s not that late, we could drive there now?”</p><p>Kai tries to conceal the less-than-subtle panic when he responds, “that wouldn’t be a good idea.  He’s probably at training.” He doesn’t know if he’s convincing, or if Jan just can’t be fucked to challenge him, but his brother drops the topic anyway, taking the phone and beginning to read out more messages.  It doesn’t seem like two minutes, when really it’s been three hours; Kai’s phone long discarded on the table and four games of FIFA later, his brother leaves, and Kai’s flat’s filled with sudden, overwhelming silence again.</p><p>The vaguely happy relaxation seeping through his veins is foreign and entirely welcome as he collapses down onto the sofa, and he almost feels pragmatic, like he could return to training with no consequences when the sun rises over the city tomorrow morning.  Like anything with him these days though, the positivity is so temporary short-lived doesn’t really cover it, because it lasts right until he clicks back onto the requests, wanting to stroke his ego a little more, and the same account that alerted his suspicions is back at the top of the page.</p><p>There’s a ridiculous backlog of messages that don’t actually take him that long to read, because most of them are simple spams of his name.  He’s about to assume this is some desperate kid begging for a notice, when he accidentally clicks on the person’s page, reads that it says 23 and that they’re a Wolfsburg fan in their bio, and fucking hell Kai is bemused.</p><p>The message that sent a chill through him, from this person, <em>Noah</em>, seemed to be only a general mention of Julian’s name, but the second the other man realises Kai’s viewed his messages, Kai’s subjected to a spam.</p><p><strong> <em>@noahbergmann: </em></strong> <em>answer me havertz</em></p><p><strong><em>@kaihavertz29:</em> </strong> <em>what do you want</em></p><p><strong><em>@noahbergmann:</em> </strong> <em>i need you to do me a favour</em></p><p>Somewhere, in the depths of his memories, alarm bells begin blaring with a chilling intensity.  There’s something about this that seems awfully familiar, but he can’t quite place his finger on it.  The only thing he knows is it’s got something to do with Julian, and if there’s one thing he’s learned in the last couple of months, is that <em>Julian-related things </em>never end well.</p><p><strong> <em>@kaihavertz29: </em></strong> <em>what is it?</em></p><p><strong> <em>@noahbergmann: </em></strong> <em>you need to break up with julian brandt</em></p><p>Kai’s stomach drops to somewhere below the equator.  He has no idea who this person is, or why they think he’s with Julian, but he does know the horrific threats of homophobia that come from football fans, and the last thing he needs is for screams of ‘faggot’ to rain down on him from all angles when he finally returns to the stadium.</p><p><strong> <em>@kaihavertz29: </em></strong> <em>what the fuck?</em></p><p><strong> <em>@kaihavertz29: </em></strong> <em>is this some sort of sick joke?</em></p><p><strong> <em>@kaihavertz29: </em></strong> <em>i’m not dating julian, nor am i gay</em></p><p>The only other time Kai’s been this nervous to see little three dots appear on the screen was immediately after he sent <em>that </em>text which essentially ended everything between them, the panic that caused him to block his former best friend’s number while Sophia looked on, face white.  This time, he actually waits it out.</p><p><strong> <em>@noahbergmann: </em></strong> <em>stop fucking lying to me</em></p><p><strong> <em>@noahbergmann: </em></strong> <em>you just need to break up with him or you’ll regret it</em></p><p><strong> <em>@kaihavertz29: </em></strong> <em>who the fuck are you and what’s your relation to julian?</em></p><p><strong> <em>@noahbergmann: </em></strong> <em>i’m noah, julian’s best friend from wolfsburg and the person he’s been in love with for five years</em></p><p>In an instant, Kai’s world inverts 180-degrees, spinning slowly on an axis that definitely isn’t straight because he suddenly <em>remembers </em>a night when Julian went all quiet, stroking his hair softly, and Kai was contented until Julian’s tears began to heat his shoulder, pooling in the crook of his neck as his former best friend hid his face.  A night where it actually took time to coax whatever Julian didn’t want to say out of him, only to be struck dumb by the revelation.</p><p>Guilt makes him click off the chat, maybe he can sleep this off and pretend it never happened, when another message comes through, guilt morphing to a horrible combination of itself and petrification.</p><p><strong> <em>@noahbergmann: </em></strong> <em>if you ignore me you’re only making it worse for yourself</em></p><p><strong> <em>@kaihavertz29: </em></strong> <em>why the fuck are you doing this? i’m not and never have been with julian</em></p><p><strong> <em>@noahbergmann: </em></strong> <em>i want my boyfriend back</em></p><p><strong> <em>@kaihavertz29: </em></strong> <em>f</em> <em>rom what i’ve heard about you, i don’t think julian’s your boyfriend</em></p><p><strong> <em>@noahbergmann: </em></strong> <em>he isn’t my boyfriend, because he’s yours.  it’s so obvious when the two of you are together.  but he’s rightfully mine, and i want what’s mine back</em></p><p>Kai’s whole body is racked with shivers, the sensation so horrifically visceral it’d be the prelude to another fucking panic attack if he wasn’t so fucking mad at the audacity, the pure evil that Noah was, evidently still is, that when his phone vibrates with the next message, he only just about resists the temptation to lob it at the wall and scream until one of his neighbours calls the police.</p><p><strong> <em>@noahbergmann: </em></strong> <em>i</em> <em>f you’ve heard about me, then why the fuck did you ask who i am?</em></p><p><strong> <em>@kaihavertz29: </em></strong> <em>i only knew your first name</em></p><p>Deep down, he knows he should tell Julian about what’s going on.  He has a right to know, this is the worst thing that ever happened to him and it’s a privilege he ever trusted Kai enough to recount the story, but as he opens their text thread, sees the <em>blocked contact </em>at the bottom of the screen, heart conducing at the sight of the lies he sent that he unravelled with his own hubris, he can’t bring himself to do it.  Like the coward he’s still too proud to accept he truly is, he goes back to the immorality that is his conversation with Julian’s rapist.</p><p><strong> <em>@noahbergmann: </em></strong> <em>julian’s been talking about me</em></p><p><strong> <em>@noahbergmann: </em></strong> <em>of course he has, i always knew he loved me</em></p><p><strong> <em>@noahbergmann: </em></strong> <em>y</em> <em>our boyfriend doesn’t love you</em></p><p>The full-blown rage Noah’s words induce reminds Kai that, no matter what he does to distract himself, he’s still in love.  Julian’s still everything to him, from the simple nothingness of the dark, to the lingering scent of the pillow that stains his memory that not even the strongest detergent can absolve, to the yells of his name that ring around the city, the vocalisation of what Kai always wished Julian would moan, that might of only existed in silent reverie.</p><p><strong> <em>@kaihavertz29: </em></strong> <em>whether he’s my boyfriend or not, he doesn’t love me.  but god knows he loves me more than he could ever love you</em></p><p><strong> <em>@noahbergmann: </em></strong> <em>that’s not true when i’ve had my cock in him</em></p><p>There’s no way Kai could counter Noah’s argument with the overwhelming truth of the sheer amount of sex they’d had, because that would get exposed to the fans within thirty seconds and the hell it’d bring down on Julian would be even worse than Kai’s.  So instead, he lets Noah say his piece, ready to cut back with the sickening reality.</p><p><strong> <em>@noahbergmann: </em></strong> <em>heard his gasps and whines</em></p><p><strong> <em>@noahbergmann: </em></strong> <em>you couldn’t compete with that</em></p><p><strong><em>@kaihavertz29: </em></strong><em>i</em> <em>might have never fucked julian, he’s my best friend anyway so that would be weird, but if i did, at least i wouldn’t rape him</em></p><p><strong> <em>@noahbergmann: </em></strong> <em>what the fuck do you mean raped</em></p><p><strong> <em>@noahbergmann: </em></strong> <em>he was moaning my name</em></p><p><strong> <em>@noahbergmann: </em></strong> <em>don’t make up false accusations just because you’re jealous you didn’t get to fuck him</em></p><p><strong> <em>@kaihavertz29: </em></strong> <em>he was moaning no and stop the whole time</em></p><p><strong> <em>@noahbergmann: </em></strong> <em>so what if he was</em></p><p><strong> <em>@noahbergmann: </em></strong> <em>he was loving my dick in him</em></p><p><strong> <em>@noahbergmann: </em></strong> <em>i’ve been imagining our next time since the last time</em></p><p><strong> <em>@noahbergmann: </em></strong> <em>so stop fucking around and get me in contact with the love of my life</em></p><p><strong> <em>@kaihavertz29: </em></strong> <em>he told me he’d rather die than hear from you again</em></p><p>He doesn’t care if his message implies that he’s still in contact with his former best friend.  Noah can believe that if he wants.  He just can’t, would rather die than, let Noah make his way back into Julian’s life.  Kai would rather kill himself then let that happen.  Not after the way Julian broke down gently into the crook of his neck, one of the nights when there was more than friendship floating around Kai didn’t think it was appropriate to comment on it.</p><p>He’d give anything to turn back time now.</p><p><strong> <em>@noahbergmann: </em></strong> <em>prove it</em></p><p><strong> <em>@kaihavertz29: </em></strong> <em>i don’t have to prove anything to you</em></p><p><strong> <em>@kaihavertz29: </em></strong> <em>fuck off, and if you dare put this chat anywhere, i will report you to the police</em></p><p>Noah might reply, but he’s inhibited by the block button.  The adrenaline’s pumping round Kai’s blood, the old alertness that he usually feels when a fight’s broken out on the pitch, and it makes sleeping so much harder.  Even so, he’s arrived at the training complex so early the following morning, not even Bosz has made it yet. Trying to ignore how culpable he is, how he spoke to the man who left Julian sobbing, the man who ruined Julian’s life, the man who made him come to Leverkusen in the first place.</p><p>Scariest of all is the painfully viable possibility that he might have been the man who made Julian leave.</p><hr/><p>
  <em><strong>dortmund,</strong> <strong>germany</strong></em>
</p><p>Outside of Bundesliga fixtures, Kai’s only been to Dortmund once.  It’d been a couple of summers ago, before Mitch had joined, back when Sam and Julian barely knew each other; so it’d been Julian, Kai and Jannis, piled into one of Julian’s cars (his former best friend had only recently passed his driving test, and was insisting on flexing his newly-acquired right at every possible opportunity) and decided to drive over to the historical footballing city, had ended up traipsing round Borsigplatz horribly lost before ending up at some little obscure coffee shop where no one gave them a second glance.  It was back in times when Kai couldn’t see beyond the following week, when it just seemed inevitable that he and Julian would grow old at Leverkusen and transfers seemed like a myth.  It was too long ago to consider Julian might have been scouting places for his future home, but he can’t help himself from wondering if the older one has been back since he moved, wonders if he looks at the little side street and thinks of Kai.</p><p>He’d zoned out for the entirety of the journey from Leverkusen, but he still knows it’s barely been an hour since Jonathan and him were bundled into one of the DFB-sanctioned cars.  When he starts to note how it’s the tiniest reminder of how overdramatic he’s been about the whole thing, it actually takes him a solid thirty seconds to remember all the context.</p><p>By this point, he’s not certain it serves as justification anymore, but he is convinced it’s definitely imposing a detriment to his health to still be so angry.  There isn’t a chance to ponder it further, because they’re being deposited at the driveway to the forest-secluded hotel, and within seconds Kai’s facing the fans.</p><p>Signing the autographs, forcing a smile onto his face and trying not to let his flooring exhaustion seep through his expressions, he almost tunes out most of the things that are yelled in his direction.  That is, until, his eyes flicker down to a tiny boy, probably no more than about six, holding his hands out in his direction and saying, in a voice tinged with shyness,</p><p>“Come to BVB, Havertz!”</p><p>There’s nothing he could say that wouldn’t cause speculation from some sort of angle, so he only smiles and laughs in a monotone, signing the kid’s shirt quickly and gripping tightly onto his suitcase, disappearing into the hotel lobby and thanking the heavens that the door is soundproof.</p><p>For a second, there’s peaceful silence, blissful, but then the already-arrived Bayern players notice his arrival, and within about two seconds, his space is occupied with an armful of an overexcited Leon Goretzka.</p><p>“Hi!” The Bayern midfielder exclaims, almost blowing Kai’s ears off with the sheer volume of his noise, “did the fans of that shitty club try and talk you into a transfer?”</p><p>He’s not given time to give a proper answer, whatever slightly strained huff he releases seemingly enough for Leon’s impatience,</p><p>“Well, we all know you’re joining us at Bayern next season anyway, so don’t listen to them.”</p><p>“Alright, Leon, he looks a bit stressed,” Serge cuts in, the epitome of gentle, carefully prising Leon’s iron grip from Kai’s shoulders, and Kai’s rarely been so grateful for just how much of an antithesis to his club teammate Serge Gnabry is.  His hug is warm, welcoming, so many unspoken words that may or may not be carried over from the previous break conveying themselves.  The moment Kai has with him is the most relaxed he’s felt all day; since the sun rose and he realised he’d be travelling to a city he doesn’t have a clue how he feels about.</p><p>Serge is pulled off him and is replaced by Manu, who mutters something in his stern, captain-esque voice about how “they’ll all take care of him during the break,” into his ear, and Kai can almost feel the glare the goalkeeper shoots at the hovering cameras. </p><p>The one good thing the publication of his issues to the rest of the time allows is, when he turns aloof, none of them question it, or even try to distract him with stupid tricks (Leon decided to yell out to Niklas instead to watch his shitty attempt at a backflip that left Lӧw looking like he wants to resign instantly; in hindsight that was perhaps Leon’s objective), they all just simply pull him into one-armed hugs that he’s not paying enough attention to make awkward.  That is, until the circulation reaches Jonas, and Kai’s brain won’t fucking let him stay out of it the second he sees Jonas’ eyebrows knit.</p><p>“Hey, kid,” he says, quietly.  He’s excited for Toni’s arrival, the sunny resemblance in his grin is enough to belie it, yet it doesn’t show in his voice.  The Kӧln captain is renowned for his sensitivity, he exhibited fucking enough of it in the bar following the shitshow that was the derby, and maybe he’s concerned that Kai’s eating himself up about, alongside Toni, Julian’s arrival is also getting closer by the second.  “How are you feeling?”</p><p>“Good,” he answers in a monotone, because it’s the closest he can get to sounding like he’s actually fine.  “Jonathan made me wake up at six this morning, even though we weren’t being picked up until eleven.”</p><p>“Why?” Jonas smiles, a little slab of amusement infiltrating his tone.  It’s a relief.  Kai feels like he’s achieved something when he hears it.</p><p>“I don’t know.  Maybe his alarm clock was broken or something.”</p><p>Jonas has been in his space for a little over a minute, which, if he’s learnt anything about himself recently, is roughly the amount of time he can last doing small talk with someone who has any sort of association with Julian for, and his brain is racking for an excuse when he catches a glimpse of an all-too-familiar blonde man making his way through the revolving doors.  Jonas’ back is to Toni, who has seemingly ditched the customary greetings with Lӧw and his cronies in favour of jumping on his boyfriend, and the childish part of Kai is set alight with the possibility of helping.</p><p>“So,” he drawls, energy rejuvenated by the expression on Toni’s face as he creeps closer, “how is Kӧln’s season going?”</p><p>“Strange of you to ask--,” Jonas says, right as Toni, reflexes lightning, wraps his arms around his middle and sweeps him off his feet.</p><p>The yell Jonas lets out causes the entire population of the room to stop talking instantly, turning around to stare at them while Toni whirls him in the air.  Kai’s sure even the cameras have stopped clicking.  He’s not the only one who can’t stop himself from beaming when the midfielder finally sets his boyfriend down, Jonas flushed and giddy and giggling with the softest expression on his face as his arms find Toni, pulling him into his arms.</p><p>Kai can’t hear what they’re saying, would feel imprudent to eavesdrop, so he focuses on the look of sheer delight on his friend’s face as Toni whispers something into his ear.  They look so ridiculously <em>happy</em>, the kind of elation that seems reserved for the most cliché, exaggerated romantic movies that Kai’s certain he’s never witnessed in real life before.  There’s no twinge of jealousy beyond envy for the primitive want to experience the rush of sunshine-laced joy flowing between the two reunited lovers, before the encompassing of the purity is ruined by a crash and a vile stream of expletives.</p><p>Leon lies on the floor.  He’d fallen over a plant pot.</p><p>The severance of the romantic pervasion prompts initial wails of complaint from pretty much everyone, fended off by Leon’s argument about the “impracticalities of the plant pot’s location,” before the whole thing is send hurtling off a cliff by the arrival of a voice that arrives ten minutes before its owner.</p><p>“WELCOME,” Marco shouts, instantly capturing everyone’s attention and immediately playing his part in the team-wide notion to force Lӧw into retirement by just being insufferable cunts, “WELCOME TO MY HOME.  WELCOME TO DORTMUND, THE BEST CITY IN THE WORLD WITH THE BEST TRAINING FACILITIES.  I COME WITH MY ACCOMPLICE, WE HAVE WALKED HERE TOGETHER---,”</p><p>Marco extravagantly gestures towards the door, that are circling at what must be a million times slower than usual, all because Kai knows who’s making their way into the room.  Julian enters, smile bright and effervescent and painfully familiar, and it’s a physical stab to Kai’s heart that he cannot walk straight up to him and take him into his arms, or maybe fall into Julian’s, he’d have decided subconsciously at some point during the approach, despite how he’s pretty sure he’s <em>yearning </em>to by this point.</p><p>“Why is everyone looking at me?” His former best friend attempts to whisper (and there’s another stab, because Kai remembers the countless times Julian’s ran them into trouble with the way his voice could carry across the bloody Atlantic Ocean) to Marco.</p><p>“I am pleased to announce,” Marco says to the watching crowd, not unlike a ringmaster at a circus, holding his arms out towards Julian, “that this young man here, has lost his virginity!”</p><p>Most of the room fall about laughing, some not picking up on the joke and eliciting several comments of “I swear you’ve had sex before!” but Kai cannot bring himself to do anything other than stand there, staring directly at Julian, practically waiting for the murderous-to-him brown eyes to meet his own.</p><p>It’s inevitable, disregarding Noah, as far as he knows, Kai’s the only person Julian’s ever had sex with.</p><p>Noah’s recent return into their bubble has plagued him over the past couple of days, and football at least managed to provide an escape to that, but his name blares through Kai’s mind once said inevitability manifests.  There’s a sense of panic, but not the familiar constricting one that he can at least identify, more a muted worry that Julian can read what’s just gone down on Kai’s face and is going to stride straight over and probably punch Kai in the face.</p><p>With the turmoil his emotions have put them both through, he wouldn’t say he wouldn’t deserve it; but Julian doesn’t, turning to greet Leon (who must have recovered from being bodied by an inanimate object), circulating through the group of people in the opposite direction to his teammate, who is only a couple of steps from Kai.</p><p>“Hey,” Marco says, pulling him into a hug and laughing when Kai shivers involuntarily at the weird chill emitted from the Dortmund player’s jacket.  “Sorry.  There was a cold wind while we walked here.”</p><p>His accepting mutter is almost inaudible.  Kai knows Julian lives in Dortmund, it’s all he fucking thought about during the journey up here, yet still, the emotion that douses him is some strange cross between surprise and jealousy.  Maybe because Julian used to be inherently lazy (on off days, back when they were <em>them</em> he’d much rather lay about and have countless, messy, indecipherable rounds of sex than go on a walk, to the point where the concept of the outside was essentially foreign), so Kai can’t really imagine him walking the few miles they’re located from the city centre, or more likely, it’s because that means one of them went to get the other, they decided to walk here together like some little fucking couple on an autumn date.</p><p>“By the way,” Marco smirks, with a scary look that screams that he’s somehow privy to Kai’s innermost thoughts, “Mario says hi.”</p><p>“Oh, um,” he stutters, unable to shake the horrific feeling of how accusatory he’s being, because Mario and Marco have been in a relationship for what feels like the entire time Kai’s been playing football, and he’s too self-obsessed and jealous to remember that purely because someone else is doing all the things he used to do with Julian. “Tell him I said hi back.”</p><p>“I will do,” Marco says with the exact same tone, before turning and breaking out into a massive smile, “Jonas! How are you, my angel?  No, Toni, it’s just a nickname, don’t kill me---,”</p><p>Kai’s paying so much attention watching as the Dortmund captain becomes embroiled in a brawl with Jonas’ boyfriend, leaving Jonas looking stranded between breaking down in fits of giggles or attempting to separate the girlish catfight, he doesn’t notice Julian approaching until the older one is in front of him, arms half-extended in an awkward offer of a hug.</p><p>There’s no conscious thought in it, Kai almost falls into his arms and it’s not fake like the last time they met this way, because the cameras are focused on Leon and Serge dancing stupidly the other side of the room, and this moment is private.  It’s just for them, Kai engulfed in Julian’s smell for what feels like the first time in <em>years</em>, the smell that used to adorn his nights and define his life.  In some strange way, while he’s in the city that robbed him, he almost feels like he’s home.</p><p>“Hi,” Julian whispers eventually, even though Kai’s got no clue how long they’ve been this way.  “Welcome to Dortmund.”</p><p>It feels like a cue to let go, but Kai misses Julian the second they’re apart, and his mind’s blank, and all he ends up saying is, “are you staying at the hotel with us or are you going home?”</p><p>“I’m staying here, you idiot.  That’s what everyone does,” Julian answers, but there’s no malice in his insult; the same kind of soft tone he used to use when Kai was half-asleep, groggy and usually moody.  He doesn’t let himself ponder the possibility of affection, because that’s a dangerous alleyway that signposts directly to relapse, but the other option is just as negative, implies that even Julian, the man he used to place his trust to the level of implicit in, believes he’s fragile and will just shatter.  He’s delicate, but he has substance.  If Julian doesn’t believe that, he’s truly fucked.</p><p>“Yeah,” he chokes out, but Julian’s already moved onto whoever’s next to him.  With the local player’s arrival, everyone’s there, so they’re allowed to head to their rooms.  Most of the team squeeze into the elevators, the tiny pranks and stupid comments already rife, but Kai, a little stunned from the almost-sentimentality of his moment with Julian, doesn’t want to be subjected to any of it.  His footsteps echo against the stairs.</p><p>Once he makes it to his room, he isn’t sure what action is going to hold him hostage, whether he’s going to crumble into sobs, or cover the bathroom in blood, but in actuality, he collapses onto the bed, rolls onto his back, cocooning himself in the sheets and stares at the ceiling.  It’s physical warmth but the emotional cold is unavoidable.  It doesn’t feel right that Julian isn’t beside him anymore, and he’s <em>accepted </em>it. </p><p>That acceptance doesn’t mean he doesn’t need it, because he does.  Strangely, with a more flooring intensity than he’s experienced since the night after the altercation in his former best friend’s hallway.</p><p>He couldn’t think of anything he wants less than dinner when the call comes through, so he doesn’t go down, even though he knows all he’s going to elicit is Manu on the warpath.  He barely even finds the motivation to answer the door when the captain comes knocking, falling backwards against the bed while Manu stares him down, not caring how fucking pathetic he must look.</p><p>“Are you coming down to dinner, or are we having another conversation?” Manu says, voice reminding Kai of his old teachers at school whenever he and his friends would get a bit too giggly.  “I will not hesitate to organise transport to send you back to Leverkusen within two hours.”</p><p>None of the options in the captain’s ultimatum are desirable, but it’s enough to force Kai down into the dining hall, and the team take mercy on him and don’t eviscerate him for being late.  The only problem is, the last remaining seat is directly opposite Jule, and Leon and Serge are taking great pleasure in hollering him in their direction, such vigour in their voices his cloak of sadness is blown straight off his shoulders.</p><p>The food is already waiting, and he manages to get down half a plateful before he finally meets Julian’s eyes.</p><p>“Hey,” he sees, rather than hears, his former best friend say.  “What took you so long?”</p><p>“I overslept,” he answers, hoping Julian can’t detect the lie in his voice.  His appearance must help cover for it, he’s been trying to run his hands through the tumultuous mess of curls for the entirety of the meal, “Manu yelled at me.”</p><p>Julian smiles, and even though he’s not looking at Kai, his face turned towards his food, something seems a little different, perhaps even a little genuine.  They’ve reacted to this so adversely, to the point where they’re lost in the maze of each other with no way of tracking back, the concept is scarily reassuring, like stumbling across something to point him in the right direction.</p><p>“I hope your ears recover soon,” the older one says through a mouthful of pasta, and Kai can’t help himself,</p><p>“Did no one tell you how important manners are?  Honestly, Brandt!”</p><p>“One minor mishap does not scar my reputation too drastically,” Julian responds, placing all his articulation into his words in the way that means there’s no way Kai won’t know he’s joking, “because unlike you, I was brought up properly.”</p><p>Kai’s a little dumbstruck, like he always is when he and Julian have an interaction which could be taken directly out of a journal recounting their old best friend moments, scrabbling and stuttering awkwardly as he tries to think of a comeback.  Luckily, Leon, childlike as ever, who is attempting to plunge his face into his bowl and slurp each piece of spaghetti individually without getting sauce on his face, provides him an easy way out.</p><p>“You call me unrefined, yet you ignore the savagery I’m forced to sit next to.”</p><p>“How the fuck does Max still stay with you when you pull shit like this?” Julian says loudly, just as the table coincidentally falls silent and he’s met with the annoyed stare of Lӧw, and the rest of the table trying to suppress their giggles. </p><p>“Fuck you, Jule, now he’s going to lecture us,” Serge breathes under his breath, just loud enough for them to pick up on, and that’s enough to set the four of them off, Kai rocking back into his chair in a way that’s almost dangerous as he tries to choke back the sobs of hilarity rising in his throat, ears straining to hear the personal warning about his tardiness and now misbehaviour the coach is dishing out to him.  Gradually, though, with every team member that becomes victim to the humour, his guilt ebbs away.  Whatever Lӧw says to them afterwards is irrelevant in comparison to the completely unfunny comments circulating that even so, manage to have them all in stiches.  It will all be the usual, repetitive, dreary bullshit that they’ve heard a million times.</p><p>A lot of the team are focused on catching up once they’re released from the meal (Kai actually managing to finish his portion after he relaxed), so Leon, Serge, Julian and him end up lounging across four sofas in the otherwise empty common room.  There’s a bag upon the mantlepiece, filled with something they’re all too lazy (and don’t care enough about) to check, the four of them muttering vague, impersonal comments at the others while scrolling through their phones, and Kai’s just bordering convinced Leon’s mentally vacated the room in conversation with Max, when the ever-energetic Bayern midfielder springs to his feet, brandishes a ball from apparently nowhere, placing it down in the centre of the room and pointing to the bag.</p><p>“Want to take turns to try and knock that bag down?”</p><p>“Nah,” the three of them say in unison, “we’ll watch.”</p><p>The second time the ball smacks against the wall behind the target, Jonas comes in, mindlessly asking Leon what he’s doing.</p><p>“Oh, I’m trying to hit that bag,” he says, placing the ball down and beginning to swing for it, just as Toni sprints into the room, panicked expression on his face and is just screaming “STOP!” as Leon’s foot connects with the ball, and the one time he isn’t meant to, the ball hits the bag square on, the contents falling to the floor in what must seem like slow motion to the three involved, before hitting with an ear-splitting crash.</p><p>“You…” Toni breathes quietly, looking like he’s trying to keep a lid on his rage and not even barely managing, “FUCKING IDIOT!”</p><p>“What?” Leon asks, oblivious and idiotic as ever, approaching the remnants of his game, cursing loudly when he cuts his finger on glass.  “What the fuck was in the bag?  Why is it wet?”</p><p>“Because that was WINE I’D BROUGHT FOR A DATE WITH JONAS,” Toni screeches, evidently not giving a shit that Manu (with his omni-audient senses) must already be on his way down to the source of the commotion, the Real Madrid midfielder’s face comically red with rage, and Kai can see how Serge and Julian are sliding down like they want to try and melt into the cushions, and it might be a good idea, because he’s pretty sure Toni’s rage is seconds away from turning on them.</p><p>They’re spared due to Leon’s insolent counter,</p><p>“Jule, where’s the nearest shop?”</p><p>“Ten minutes away,” the Dortmund player answers, not looking up from his phone, but Kai can’t miss the amusement flickering in his expression.  They’re teetering on the edge, but Toni’s wrath is much more terrifying than Lӧw’s.  It makes it easier to bite down the giggles, Kai acting like he isn’t paying diligent attention to the altercation.</p><p>“Did you hear that?” Leon challenges bravely, either foolishly fearless or blissfully unaware that every word is like adding five litres of petrol to the burning skip that practically defines Toni by now.  “Look,” the Bayern player continues, brandishing a twenty Euro note (which is more of a surprise than anything else, because Leon is usually so tight) and wafting it in Toni’s direction.  “Here’s some money, go and take yourself down to the shop and buy another bottle.”</p><p>“That’s not the point,” Toni says, not yelling now, most likely out of respect for the few other guests. “That was expensive Spanish wine that I’d told Jonas I was going to bring, and you fucking decided to kick a ball at it?  How fucking stupid do you have to be?”</p><p>“What the fuck is going on in here?” Manu bursts through the door, sounding just like Toni did initially, “Toni, why are you shouting at Leon?  Why is there a wet stain on the floor?  Why do I smell wine and wasn’t invited to come and share it?” The captain’s eyes scan the room, settling on Kai and there’s just about time for fear to prickle into Kai’s skin when Manu points at him indignantly, glaring at Toni, “were you planning on giving the<em> child</em> alcohol?”</p><p>“No,” Toni says, beginning to melodramatically explain the story in between being interrupted by Leon, and Kai’s a little disappointed when he meets Serge’s eyes, sees his friend mouth that they should get out of there before they’re dragged into whatever punishment’s inflicted.  The feeling of his back rubbing against the wall is weird as he literally slips out as if they’re recreating a scene from some second-rate spy movie, barely stopping to whisper an unspecific apology to Jonas who looks half like he’s deliberating licking up the pool of wine just to get drunk and avoid Manu’s evisceration.</p><p>“Quick, up the stairs!” Serge whisper-yells once they’re out of the vicinity of the common room, Julian’s hand brushing against Kai’s as they tackle the stairs two-at-a-time, hoping they’re not pursued by the effortless, harrowing call of their captain.  The Bayern forward must get his key card out during the ascent, because within about fifteen seconds they’re stumbling through the door of Serge’s room, succumbing to their laughter in perfect time with the door clicking shut.</p><p>Dizziness overwhelms him, the room spinning slowly as his shoulders shake, tears forming at the corners of his eyes with laughter, the kind of ferocious, unstoppable happiness that he thought would forever be associated with old summers and that he would never really feel it again.  The other two don’t seem to be faring any better, judging by what Kai can see of them through his blurred vision, Serge has collapsed onto the floor, almost convulsing and it’s such a stupid sight Kai slips into a whole other bout of hilarity, he can sense Julian by his side, that deep, gorgeous laugh ringing in his ears and he’s so proud of himself when he realises it doesn’t evoke fear, it just makes him laugh harder.</p><p>Just as they should be really starting to calm down, Serge chokes out, “Toni’s face!” and it sets them off again, they’re not going to be able to keep this up much longer before Manu hunts them down or someone else comes banging on their door, yelling at them to shut up and stop being cockblocks, but in that moment, Kai couldn’t care less.</p><p>“Oh fuck,” Julian gets out, once their bodies probably couldn’t take the wracks of laughter they’ve just been subjected to any longer.  “What I wouldn’t give to see what happened after we left.”</p><p>“We would’ve been slaughtered by Manu just for being there,” Kai says, voice breathy.  “But I would’ve loved to see them absolutely lose it at Leon.”</p><p>“What would Jonas be doing?” Julian’s smile is so huge, Kai momentarily forgets Serge is there and instinctively goes to stroke the stray straggles of blonde hair out of Julian’s eyes, but for the first time he doesn’t give a shit if his voice conveys anything deeper when he softly responds something about the Kӧln captain’s natural response probably being along the lines of profusely apologising for something that definitely wasn’t his fault.</p><p>“I wonder if Jonas and Toni will actually get to go on their date,” Serge remarks.</p><p>“If they do, Toni will just be a little whiny bitch for the whole thing, so it might be worth Jonas’ while just taking him back to his room and fucking him.”</p><p>“Ew,” Serge’s face coils in horror, and Kai’s about to laugh at him for the complete lack of maturity when he carries on, “I can’t imagine Jonas having sex with anyone.  He’s way too angelic.”</p><p>“I can,” Julian says, shuddering slightly, and Kai knows exactly which story he’s about to tell, because he was there too.  Not officially, and he’s not about to admit that to Serge, but it had been one of those nights when what they used to have had overcome them, until Jonas and Toni seemed determined to get their revenge. “I had a room next door to them both once, and you could hear them going at it for fucking hours, literally every night.”</p><p>“That’s grim,” Kai can see Serge cringe in his peripheral vision, but he’s having a fucking hard time taking his eyes off Julian.  His heart is stuttering, and for a panic-stricken moment he’s convinced he’s about to breakdown, until he registers the torturous yet pleasant flutters in his stomach.  They draw his attention to the bomb that must have migrated to there during their evasion, can practically feel the flame slowly trickle down the string, and if laughter won’t defuse it, he doesn’t know what can.</p><p>The only thing he can think of is if he sat Julian down, handed him his phone and told him to read through the chats with Noah, can almost feel the fear that would be unfiltered as it would course through his veins, can almost imagine the way Julian’s face would harden, the thick, heavy anger, nothing like the comedic scene they’ve both bared witness too, maybe that would provoke something that could force it out of him.  But he’s too weak, too lax, too craving of intimate, happy moments with the person he couldn’t have shoved away with more force if he’d tried.</p><p>“Uh,” he says, trying not to speak too fast and barely managing, “I’m going to head back to my room, I’m whacked.  See you both at training tomorrow.”</p><p>He thinks Julian might try to excuse himself as he leaves, part of him on the lookout for any traces of Manu lurking, ready to ambush him with god-knows-what, but he manages to make it back to his hotel room without encountering either of them.  He’s next door to Leon, and hears a suspicious groan resonate through the walls that he has to try very hard to convince himself is just stabs of pain and not the throes of orgasm.</p><p>The thought is jarring, horrendously captivating enough to drown out the hiss of the bomb fuse, the clock that he’s become while he brushes his teeth and climbs into bed, not caring that it’s relatively early and there’s every chance someone could come knocking at any point for at least the next two hours.  However there, with drowsiness’ looming silence, it’s unavoidable.  <em>He’s </em>unavoidable, he can’t outrun himself, he’s had enough goddamn practice and he keeps suffering the same fate, and he doesn’t know how long he can maintain this futile hope before he implodes, he’s a shell of his former self, the human embodiment of a forgotten town following a meteor strike, filled with water from years of rainfall, except for him, the rainfall is his own sense of self-loathing.</p><p>The seconds after he whacks his head against the headboard as if that’ll physically knock the tragic threat of what he’s quickly becoming out of his head are petrifying, because whoever’s in the room on his other side falls eerily silent, and Kai’s sure they’re coming to burst his door down and question him until the entire team all cave in from exhaustion at the foot of his bed, but they don’t.  The generic sounds restart from the bathroom, and the tiniest ounce of tension lifts from Kai’s shoulders.</p><p>Against his better sense because he knows how prone to psychological disaster he is, when how Julian looked earlier revisits him, his mind’s eye conjuring up a beautiful replica of the over-exerted smile and the tiniest droplets of sweat making his hair sticky, he decides to contemplate it, fantasise himself to sleep.  There were so many nights where the older man’s presence wasn’t limited to his imagination, his warm, soft, solid weight dangerous, beautiful company.</p><p>His brain might have used the past as motivation for him to not-so-subtly bolt from Serge’s room earlier, but now, the fear’s dissipated.  Thinking about Julian doesn’t appear to be evoking any panic from him, and the worst thing about it is the knowledge he’s got to use all his resolve to savour it because god knows he’ll revert back to his new normal with tomorrow’s sunrise.</p><p>Sleep makes it impossible for him to decipher when precisely he stops thinking of Julian, his only distraction from worrying about the nightmares that cause him to wake most nights, voice hoarse from unconscious screaming, sheets crumpled and tangled from how tight he’s clasping them.  They don’t come tonight, he wakes with the sun streaming through his windows, feeling, for what feels like the first time in months, like he’s had a good night’s sleep.</p><p>His renewed sense provides him with the old, slightly self-conscious outlook that used to follow him everywhere; haunting him when he’s one of the first down to breakfast and doesn’t miss the way Lӧw’s eyebrows raise into his hairline in unconcealed shock.  He doesn’t sit in earshot of them, doesn’t want to be dragged into their conversation, doesn’t want to be questioned by someone he knows doesn’t have any sympathy for him.</p><p>The reminder heightens his desire to show them all at training, not in the least himself, that even though they all think he’s weak, he’s a damn good footballer.  He isn’t free of what he admitted to Jan roughly a week ago, knows that he’s most likely going to start the match two nights from now in the biggest stadium in the country, but he also hasn’t forgotten what his brother told him.  Looking across at the crest emblazoned on Jonas’ chest (he’s just sat down, smiling awkwardly as he bites into his roll), he knows this is what he always wanted to do.  He’d hate Julian and himself forever, with bitterness that would burn his soul, if he let them rob him of his childhood afternoons and the years he’s dedicated.</p><p>Leon comes bounding into the room, looking like he snuck Dortmund’s entire supply of coffee into his hotel room and consumed it all, and Kai stifles a giggle at the way Toni’s shoulders tense from where he’s muttering something into his boyfriend’s ear.</p><p>“Don’t kick off at him again,” Kai offers, “I don’t think Manu would appreciate that.”</p><p>“He’s still got some pent-up anger after you, Brandt and Gnabry snuck off last night, don’t make me steal it from him and use it up.” There’s an air of snarkiness to Toni’s words, but Jonas is slightly nuzzled into the crook of his neck and there’s no way Toni can stay mad when he’s being softened from the outside in like that.</p><p>“We didn’t do anything, lay off it,” Serge says, scaring the life out of Kai as he sits down next to him, a slightly bashful Leon by his side.  “Leon has something he wants to say to you.”</p><p>Toni raises his eyebrows, looking like he’s about to fire back some insult and Kai’s momentarily surprised that Manu didn’t manage to iron out any rifts that may have formed.  But Leon cuts him off, sounding so genuinely remorseful all four of their faces must seem like pictures, “I really am sorry for ruining your date last night.  I know I would’ve been really upset if someone had done that to me if I hadn’t seen Max for a while.”</p><p>“It’s okay,” Toni replies, voice sounding nothing like his expression, “Jonas and I enjoyed our night anyway.”</p><p>For a second, everyone bar Jonas groans at Toni’s insinuation, the Kӧln captain flushing scarlet and punching his boyfriend’s arm when he catches on, berating him for the humiliation, when suddenly a voice rings out from behind Kai,</p><p>“Fucking hell, Leon, don’t tell me you caused them to start fighting?” Julian says loudly, the scrape of the chair legs on the floor triggering all Kai’s cringe senses as the older man slides into the chair on his other side he didn’t notice was still unoccupied.  Kai tries not to make it obvious how he chokes, his food suddenly tasting like sawdust at Julian’s proximity and the effect it’s having on him, because he hasn’t taken care of himself in a while and his hormones are immediately mounting to torture him as punishment. “You’ve already caused them enough trouble.”</p><p>“I was actually apologising, if you’d bother to use those massive ears of yours,” Leon’s retaliation is swift, elicits a slightly-minor uproar from Serge and Toni that enables Kai to discreetly adjust his shorts, willing his dick that is starting to get hard to stop.  His blood is still on muted fire when he’s successful, so he wolfs down the rest of his food, letting the other guys ramble on about whatever irrelevant bullshit has sprung into their heads, and mumbles something about needing a shower, barely even waiting long enough to leave alongside Matze.  If Julian’s worried that he’s freaking out, then all Kai needs to do is appear at training in half an hour as the epitome of composure, revert to the determined mindset that possessed him as he took his plate from the cooks that morning.</p><p>Cold water runs over his skin, challenges the flames.</p><p>As he steps down into the corridor for training, the black-and-yellow infrastructure of Borussia Dortmund visible past the doors, the stadium high up on the hill, glaring down on the city with a regal intensity, he’s expecting his fears to flare up again.  But they don’t, he’s regained, maybe for one morning, maybe for life, the childish excitement that used to make him giddy.  The one thing he can never let himself lose for good.</p><p>• • • • • •</p><p>“Bro, do you just want me to take a picture of you so you can admire it without having to break your fucking neck?” Serge yells, laughter infused in his voice, from where he’s lounging, lazily, on one of the benches.  They’re the only two in the makeshift changing room that still has a lingering stench of sweat, instructed to get changed and go directly to one of the other rooms Kai knows he’ll take an age to find, but all he can do is stand in the mirror, craning his neck to get a better look at the new number printed on his back.</p><p>When he was a kid, he didn’t know exactly what number he wished for, so when he pulled the senior shirt on for the first time, he was filled with this whirlwind sense of pride, of accomplishment, a sensation he would’ve liked to freeze and live in forever, because it was a time when everything was simple, he was rooming with Julian and fuck, he can still see the way the smile grew on his former best friend’s face, the one that Kai thought was exclusively reserved for him alone.  His heart had stumbled then, but in the innocent way, the way of someone who didn’t really know any of the pain the world had to offer.</p><p>But now, wearing ‘seven,’ smooth, singular black line, there’s a lump in his throat.  Twenty-three belied that he was a fringe player, but now, he’s moving forwards; even when he keeps getting stuck in the hellish forces that try to shove him in the other direction.  His pride has matured with him in the year, but it still can’t be that much, he thinks, as Serge flitters around him, snapping his phone camera from all angles.</p><p>“Just to prepare you for whatever the media team ask you to do later.”</p><p>“I dread to think,” he says, as he opens the door to find one of the media personnel standing outside, trying not to look annoyed at their lateness.  The two of them awkwardly ignore the disapproval.  The staff member’s expression, however, is completely oxymoronic compared to the overexcited exuberance of the photographer, who greets them with handshakes and a way-too-large smile for nine in the morning.</p><p>“We’re just going to take some photos of you for the social media accounts, and Kai also so your number change can be announced, is that okay?”</p><p>“Yeah,” he says, smirking at Serge who’s subjected to the onslaught of lights and minute directions that Kai has no idea how they actually improve the outcome of the photo.  It reminds him of Jannis, by far the bossiest photographer he’s ever faced, who once ended up standing on a chair just to get the exact right angle of the underside of Kai’s jawline.</p><p>He gets told off for giggling when Serge gets asked to roar like he’s just scored a wonder goal.</p><p>The Bayern midfielder isn’t allowed to wait for him once his photoshoot is finished, hurried away to go and join someone (the poor staff person will probably deposit him in the general vicinity of Leon and hope they don’t burn the hotel down), so Kai’s left alone with the extensive lighting setup and a massive camera pointing in his direction.</p><p>“Okay, Kai, turn your back to me, and pull on the shoulders of your shirt,” the photographer says, yelling as if there’s noise that might drown him out.  In reality, it just makes him seem a cringeworthy level of out of touch.  Still, he obeys the orders in the succession they come, tries to fight down the instinctive blush that rises to his cheeks when he’s asked to do something stupid, and after what feels like a lifetime, the team is nodding approval and he’s allowed to go back to the common room.</p><p>He’s halfway there when his phone buzzes.</p><p><strong>Jan: </strong>since when were you the no 7?</p><p><strong>Jan: </strong>and why didn’t you tell us?</p><p>His brother spams him with about eight more messages in the time it takes him to open Twitter and see that the DFB account has already tweeted some of the pictures from the shoot, the new number on his back, the smile on his face that looks more genuine than it felt. </p><p><strong>Kai: </strong>it happened today</p><p><strong>Jan: </strong>i’m proud of you, idiot</p><p><strong>Jan: </strong>wait until mum finds out</p><p>He’s so caught up in reading Jan recounting their mother’s reaction when she found out about Kai’s first national team callup (he remembers some of it, but there’d been a half hour delay before he’d been able to phone, half an hour for her to get most of her initial tears out), he almost walks into the doorframe, but his sense of direction returns to him at the last second, manages to enable his escape of three hours of teasing.  What does happen, though, is his mother calls him, which causes the entire team to lose their shit.</p><p>“MRS HAVERTZ!” Leon squeals, “the woman who birthed our baby!”</p><p>Kai’s never been so grateful his mum doesn’t like using video chat.  He’s just about finished glaring Leon down when his mother speaks,</p><p>“Who’s that, Kai?”</p><p>“Leon Goretzka, so please ignore anything he says.  Same goes for Toni Kroos, or anyone who isn’t Jonas Hector essentially.”</p><p>Jonas looks up from Toni’s lap, shoots him a small smile that moulds into a laugh at whatever indignant comment Toni fires in retaliation, Kai’s too busy listening to his mother to pay any attention.  Nothing distracts him, until he glances up for a second and his eyes fall on Julian, and as if his mother is watching him through some strange intervention, she loudly asks,</p><p>“And how’s the lovely Julian?”</p><p>“He’s good,” Kai says weakly, feelings about as obvious as who he’s talking to judging by the way his skin heats up in a blush.  Some members of the team snigger as his former best friend awkwardly stands, perches on the armrest by Kai’s side and takes the phone from him.</p><p>“Hi, Frau Havertz, how are you?”</p><p>Julian’s the only one of Kai’s teammates his mother has properly met outside of the club setting, back in the days when Julian would come home with him.  She was there one afternoon, chatting non-stop to Kai’s best friend while Kai himself sat and watched them, feeling a little like a proud boyfriend because neither of them had to know what domestic situation he was envisioning.  He’d had to hide his phone from Julian later, because he’d started smiling like an idiot when she’d texted him saying she approved of his boyfriend and Julian was <em>annoying </em>and also could never know how he felt.</p><p>The most painful part is they’re chatting like nothing’s changed.  For a second, Kai almost wants to snatch his phone back, go to google and search which team Julian actually plays for, because if he saw the scene as an emotionally uninvested outsider, he’d be convinced Julian was still home with him.  But he can’t do that, he just watches as Julian charms the hell out of his mum again and tries not to make his smile forced when he eventually hands the phone back to Kai, leaving the room before anyone can say anything.  His only follower is Leon’s whiny voice because apparently Julian’s ditching the game they were playing.</p><p>Kai’s phone is buzzing relentlessly, almost drowning out whatever musings about how proud she is his mum is trying to tell him.  Purely because he knows there’s imminent humiliation being offset just as long as it’ll take him to finish his conversation with her, he’s glad when she hangs up moments later, if only just to get it over with.</p><p>“Blushing, hey?” Niklas teases, punching a little too hard at Kai’s shoulder.  “Brandt has a better relationship with your mum than you do!”</p><p>“Not just that,” Leon pipes up, “Julian has a better relationship with Kai’s mum than he does with Ka---,” he’s cut off by Marco’s warning tones and before the stinging insinuation of his insensitivity has time to settle, wash itself, burn itself into Kai’s skin as he stares, apathetically, at the vision of rushed apology unfolding before him, Manu’s hoisted the Bayern midfielder out of the room to seemingly no objection.  Marco’s arm is over his shoulder, muttering extended apologies that Kai doesn’t give a shit about.</p><p>It’s not burning, pulsating rage, nor the treacherous warning of overthinking rushing to its inevitable conclusion, he barely even has the energy to be angry.  Once he gets to his room, he tears the shirt he’d been so proud of off, throws it on the floor and burrows his face in the pillows until his heart stops beating so fucking fast.</p><p>Exhaustion has hung over him like a shadow since Julian left, simply because there’s no fucking consistency left in his existence anymore.  It’s like his former best friend walked out and upended everything in the universe into unfixable disarray and doesn’t even seem to give a shit about its implications.  If all he’s become is a contemplating mess of existentialism, doomed to be provoked into breakdown and insanity by mumbled comments and the look of whatever-it-is that Julian shows in his stupidly beautiful eyes, he won’t be able to carry that life forever.  Every day feels like another hundred-kilo weight bolted onto the shackles that are locked around his throat.</p><p>He doesn’t even realise he’s fallen asleep until he’s shaken awake by Manu, brandishing a room key newly minted from reception, loudly berating him that it’s time for them to leave for the game and he needs to get a fucking move on.</p><p>Leon’s waiting outside his hotel room, biting at his bottom lip as Manu heads down the stairs, out of earshot.</p><p>“I’m really sorry about what I said earlier--,”</p><p>“Leave it,” he says with as much benevolence as he can muster, “it didn’t actually offend me at all.  Manu and Marco are very protective of me I think.”</p><p>“We all are,” Leon says, waving away Kai’s attempted thank when he hands him a boot he didn’t even realise he’d dropped, “we’re a team, and we all need to look after each other, but even though we all know how loathe you are to admit it, you need us right now.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Kai says, swallowing thickly to suppress the cringe that rises within him as they enter the lobby, everyone side-eyeing them like they’re trying not to make it obvious.  Kai follows Leon wordlessly towards Julian and Serge, stands there and tries not to look pitifully awkward after he’s handed his suitcase to the staff.  The game isn’t too late, and they’re flying to Tallinn immediately after, so there’s a whole fuss when someone’s inevitably forgotten something or put their phone charger in the wrong bag, but eventually they’re stockpiled onto the bus and throwing immature jokes about Lӧw going grey.</p><p>Leon makes a comment about him retiring before they can get him to quit that is way too loud for an impromptu moment of silence; yet the coach doesn’t bother to eviscerate him.  The only retribution he’s subjected to is a cutting comment from Manu about the complete lack of necessity in quite a lot of the shit that comes out of Leon’s mouth, a remark that has the entire coach hollering.</p><p>The rest of the time Kai spends with his forehead pressed against the transparent plastic of the window and trying to ignore both the goose bumps that are prickling across his skin and Julian, who somehow ended up sitting next to him.  To anyone else, it might look like he’s dissecting each part of the city as he passes, and in the world of obsessive media, that would definitely somehow end up being the basis for a transfer speculation, but really, he’s staring at the reflection of himself and Julian.  The early-evening light is catching in his hair, so naturally and obliviously beautiful.</p><p>Kai’s so distracted he doesn’t realise they’ve arrived until his former best friend pokes him gently in the arm and says quietly, “we’re here.  You okay?”</p><p>“Yeah,” he answers, voice relaxed and pliant like it only ever goes after he’s spent ages dissociating.  “I just want to get out there.”</p><p>“You’ll be great,” the older one says, quietly beneath the bustle of the team attempting and failing to disembark a bus without raising a noise equivalent to a riot.  “I didn’t get to tell you earlier, but I’m really happy for you, you know, about the new number.”</p><p>“Thanks,” that’s all he manages to get out before Julian’s forcefully shoved (probably by one of the defenders wanting to get off the bus) down the aisle away from him.  There’s barely time for him to notice the twinge of sadness in retrospect to how comfortable it was talking to him.  Times like this are the smallest reminders of what they used to have, and he almost sees it as a tantalising prospect, that if he’d reacted differently, if Julian had brought the whole saga around differently, maybe they’d be like this all the time, rather than for fleeting moments on too-loud team buses in between Kai freaking out.</p><p>He enters the stadium, the crown jewel of this footballing-mad city, still locked in that slight trance that provides him with the most confidence he’s had in longer than he really wants to remember.  In spite of everything, his feigned illness, the lingering guilt that he still hasn’t confessed his interactions with Noah to Julian, part of him knows that he’s going to play a good fucking match later.</p><p>When he was here a few weeks ago, he’d seen the current squad photo, his eyes falling on Julian, all bright and yellow and his heart had almost broken out of his chest in pain, but now, he’s steeled himself for it, and he’s happy it doesn’t have the same effect on him this time.  He stands in the centre of the pitch during the inspection, looks up at the stands, the writing scrawled across the seats, and what’s even stranger is, when he sees Julian and Marco posing for photos with someone he doesn’t recognise, the first thing he thinks is how perfectly his former best friend fits in here.</p><p>How he was always meant to be playing here with eighty thousand people cheering his name, raining down on him.  Kai feels a resurgence in the small part of him that’s grown up enough to be able to let Julian go, a swell of pride that brings an infallible, if tiny, smile to his lips.</p><p>Julian’s eyes meet his, and he can’t help himself, he’s probably grinning like an idiot and Julian’s eyes have lit up slightly as he laughs to himself before he’s summoned to turn back to whatever camera is filming him.  Kai’s dumbfounded by how similar the physical sensation of dizzying happiness feels to his panic attack symptoms, except the lump in his throat is almost pleasant instead of bitter.  Briefly, he wonders if it’s too much to hope that the time bomb has been defused.</p><p>Maybe he should be worried about the speed by which he’s flicking between emotions, how treacherous it must be to flirt with whiplash, but the feeling is so welcome he can’t bring himself to toxify it.  This time, when he loses himself in his own head, he isn’t greeted by an overwhelming barrage of self-doubt, it’s just blissful peace.</p><p>“What are you smiling about?” Marco says, because the team is probably programmed into tracking his thoughts and someone’s had the brilliant idea of playing with said peace.  “See, Goretzka, look how happy Kai is here!  You lot at Bayern can dream on that he’s ever going to feel as at home there than he does in this wonderful stadium.”</p><p>“Like you could ever afford him,” Leon fires back, kicking a football that Kai has no idea where it came from at Marco’s head, probably giving Toni war flashbacks from where the midfielder is glowering on the other side of the group.  “Kai’s going to come to Bayern, aren’t you, love?”</p><p>“Who are you calling love?” He challenges, because he <em>does not </em>want to discuss his future.  It was stressful enough listening to Jan’s well-thought advice, and god knows all these idiots are going to offer him is biased interruptions that are more likely to elicit a panic attack then their desired outcome.</p><p>“Yeah,” Toni says, only a little smug, “don’t you have a boyfriend, Goretzka?”</p><p>“Yeah, I do, but that doesn’t mean I can’t love Kai!”</p><p>“I think that’s exactly what it means,” someone, maybe Emre, says.  His words, of course, cause Leon to go into a melodramatic sulk that only enables a million insults to be hurled in his direction, Kai merely relieved the attention’s been taken off him again.  He’s had more than his fair share of it this week already, and it’s not going to be so long before someone uncovers something that he may not even be aware he doesn’t want them to know.</p><p>The media is going crazy with the symbolism of the match, the reminiscence of the world cup final flying around all of the tabloid websites, but while Kai sits in the locker room, silently observing the rest of the team barely being able to restrain themselves from their primal desire to act like idiots, he couldn’t feel further away from the trophy he used to imagine himself lifting.</p><p>“Hey,” a soft voice rings in his ear, and he’s probably about to choke on his heart that’s in his throat because he could’ve sworn it was Julian, which only causes him to release an embarrassingly loud sigh when he sees Jonas settle into the seat next to him, “how are you doing?”</p><p>“Fine,” he answers, partly wishing he hadn’t used it as a cop-out response more often than not in the past couple of months, because this time, it genuinely is the most adequate response.  “Just trying to prepare for the game.  It’s only a friendly though, so it should all be okay.”</p><p>Jonas looks as though he’s biting his lip to keep from saying something, which is the only indication that the reassurance that he’s on the bench and will be there to talk to him if he needs it isn’t what he really came over to tell him.  He’s gone, half-sitting on Toni’s lap, before Kai would’ve had chance to question him, but he didn’t want to anyway.  His eyes travel back to the overhead locker with Julian’s name inscribed onto it, and for a second he forgets where he is and is about to be massively confused when the neighbouring locker is not emblazoned with his own; instead, Marco’s.</p><p>The two of them are sat in their club-designated spots, Marco punching Julian gently, shoulders shaking as he laughs, with an ease that belies this has happened hundreds of times.  The same ease Kai used to associate with himself and Julian, they were the kind of best friends that had other friends but didn’t really need anyone except for the other, and fucking hell doesn’t Kai know how shit of an idea that was in their profession.  Still, he suffers a short stab of pain at the reminder of his irrelevance in Julian’s life now.  It’s enough to make him first out of the dressing room for the warmup once the call comes.</p><p>Lucas is there, so Kai deflects suspicion by talking to him about something completely unrelated to what’s upcoming, ambiguously responds to his club teammates’ invite to a team party at his house before he’s instructed to begin warming up with Luca.  Luckily, he doesn’t know the Freiburg striker well, so he’s free to drift off into his own head without being called out, aimlessly passing the ball across the field.  In times past, he’d have jumped at the idea of a party, he and Julian doing drinking games until they were almost unconscious on the host’s living room floor, just about in control enough to stumble back to whoever’s flat was closest, have several, blurry rounds of sex because they actually let themselves touch the other one, and then wake up completely naked at three in the afternoon.  He feels a rush of nostalgia for the nights that got him into this predicament.</p><p>He’s dragged into a group for the passing drills, and he can’t evade them here, so he trains his eyes on the ball, even when it’s being tossed around the other side of the circle, just because that way, he won’t make eye contact with anyone, not least Julian, who he can’t miss shooting him looks.  His skin prickles under his shirt.</p><p>“Okay, that’s it!” Lӧw shouts, “back to the dressing room!”</p><p>As if a switch has been flicked, he reverts back to his old mode, the setting where he blocked everything else out, adjusts into it while Lӧw repeats the same spiel for the millionth time since they arrived for the break.  It all feels a little blurry, because the next time he properly registers something, it’s when Serge slaps him on the back as they’re lining up, Kai distracting himself by speaking to his little mascot, a little boy called Elias who admits he recently begun treatment for leukaemia. </p><p>“You are a very good player,” Elias whispers, still a little shy as he clasps Kai’s hand, “I wish I could play like you, but my illness stopped me from being able to go to training anymore.”</p><p>“You can be an amazing player whether you’re ill or not, all you need to do is love the game,” he tells him, leaning down until he’s level with the kid.  “All the best for your recovery.”</p><p>“Thank you,” Elias smiles, glancing down at their intertwined hands.  The rush of affection, bitterly combined with the dampening sense how cruel the world can be flows through Kai, almost knocking him off his feet with the perspective it gives him.  How much he’s been hurt by the man he’s pretty sure is the love of his life if that concept is real, but he has everything else he could ever want.  He’s got more money, more fame, more admirers than he knows what to do with, all because he lucked out.  Elias has nothing in comparison.  He doesn’t even have good fucking health.</p><p>He makes a mental note to be more grateful, if only for the kid’s sake.</p><p>When Julian, late as ever, appears in front of him and only slightly nervously wishes him luck, he decides to test his new philosophy by smiling brightly and saying it back, so loud he sees some of the team flashing him confused looks.  He can’t bring himself to care, and there isn’t time anyway, because they’re walking onto the pitch, the stadium infinitely fuller than it was ten minutes ago.</p><p>The anthems ring out, Kai singing along and doing his best not to dissolve in fits of giggles when he’s subjected to the ear-splitting tones that is Julian’s attempts at singing, but by that point, he’s sobered when he leans down and helps Elias wave, places a little kiss on his head and actually smiles when the little kid runs off, grinning back at him.</p><p>His life is doing that thing where it feels oddly like a reel of events that could be utterly disconnected if it wasn’t for the cacophony of noise exploding around him as they get into position for kick off.  It’s only a friendly, and they’re eliciting a reception like this, and for the first time he understands why Dortmund players rave about their fans all the goddamn time.  It isn’t the time to think about that now, Dortmund isn’t relevant except for the fact it’s his physical location at this moment in time, the slide of the ball against his foot as he receives the opening pass the only thing he needs to concentrate on.</p><p>Instantly, he starts perusing a way through the Argentine formation, knowing slipping into his own head has prompted the shit performances he’s been delivering recently.  He needs to shut them up, the fans who are turning on them, the critics who are slapping insults all over his performances, but what he isn’t expecting is the painful jolt when he attempts a risky pass he used to get away with all the time in Leverkusen, not expecting anyone to get it, only for Julian to manoeuvre into the space with ease.</p><p>It’s just like everyone else says, Julian makes him look better.</p><p>His former best friend continues up from his attempts to weave through the players, not even a minute on the clock, before Rojo comes in with a tackle, kicking the ball upfield and stifling out their tentative, testing form of initial challenge.  Emre shoves the onrushing attacker off the ball, putting in a long ball of his own that Luca embroils himself in a challenge for, and instantly it’s obvious that, despite its name, wounds of the past are still held open and sting, and the game is going to be fraught and testy.  Not in the same way that the demolition Dortmund subjected Leverkusen to mere weeks ago, the kind of painful attempt that just melted into complete apathy as the goals rolled into their net, this is the kind of agitation that can only rise from history.  If there was any remaining doubt, the tone is set half a minute later when Argentina’s right back tries to play a ball forward, Joshua scrambling to intercept it and try and create an early opening, colliding into another midfielder and failing to retain the possession.</p><p>Instructions fly in his direction, only to be drowned out by the stark realisation that Argentina are formulating their first attack, sprinting down the pitch, tracking his defender, the ball being lobbed forwards to where Dybala is advancing, and there’s just enough time for him to swear quietly before the ball ends up at Niklas’ feet, legally passed back to Marc-Andre, but Pereyra claims the pass, swinging wildly off target and relieving a little bit of the pressure.</p><p>Kai’s eyes meet Julian’s, nodding fiercely at the small smile the older one shoots him as they prepare for the goal kick.  It hasn’t been long, maybe ten minutes, both teams sniffing around at the resolve of the opposition’s back line, but there hasn’t been anything threatening save from the fleeting fear of Dybala’s skill.  That’s until Julian, dropping back further than he used to when he played alongside Kai, manipulates an attacking situation until Germany have the ball.  He always had this effortless way of stamping his authority on games, the kind of reassurance that made Kai feel homesick for a place he hadn’t physically left in every game in Leverkusen.  They work it forward, but Julian’s not quite where he needs to be for the shot.</p><p>Seconds later, they’re inches away from being punished for their lack of a final pass, because Pereyra easily dodges Marcel and breaks down the wing, swinging in a cross that neither Dybala nor Niklas reach, Joshua claiming it from the other side of the box and Kai can hear the Spanish curse from one of the Argentine midfielders when Germany’s captain nutmegs him.</p><p>Joshua ends up conceding a free kick from the same sequence of play, with a mistimed retaliatory challenge on Dybala who had swiped the ball from his feet, crowd inhaling collectively, concerned, when the ball begins to trickle towards the goal, said pressure melting into a unified snort when the Argentina striker slips onto the turf unchallenged, Robert playing the ball away neatly to add insult to injury.  He isn’t expecting it, the rush of the game and the early warnings from their opponents pegging them back slightly, which is why, when Kai’s heart decides to beat irregularly, it causes him to leer worryingly on the field, because after he’s played a sharp through pass to Serge, who gets it to Julian, his former best friend unleashes a shot that ends up agonisingly close to the goal.  The movement is so ingrained into his memory he can’t fight the déjà vu.</p><p>During the agony that was the match here in the Bundesliga, he’d overheard Marco’s voice slice through the wind at someone, telling them to “get the fuck out of your head,” and really, he could deal with the anger-infused message from the Dortmund captain right about now.  But, he’s on the bench, chatting amicably with Jonas.</p><p>He misses a slight scrap between Luca and one of the midfielders, but he can’t miss the way Julian shoves off the defenders that swarm him effortlessly, is almost a bystander in the box when they crowd Serge, who navigates past them all with the most delicious ease, falling backwards as he chips the ball across the face of goal and it bounces against the netting.</p><p>Kai blinks, and within an instant the thunderous roars, a volcanic cacophony settle down from the stands, shake every fibre of his being, his feet subconsciously dragging him towards the huddle of his teammates.  The voices of their friends on the bench blare loud, the mutters of congratulations laced with expletives about their opponents swarming around Serge, the feeling he’d dreamed of but never could’ve guessed how magical it would feel when he tried to imagine it in the middle of his living room.</p><p>From there, he can sense unsettlement make its way into Argentina’s mindset, the cursing and sighing coming from their fans, packed into a small corner of the stadium, when Germany win two consecutive corners, not quite being able to beat the zonal marking trap, Emre’s teasing long-range effort rolling slightly wide from the deflections.</p><p> Yet, despite the advantageous scoreline and the predominant relaxation running through his veins, he still hates how he’s been largely anonymous so far, his quiet, reserved tendency enabling his defender to work him off the ball with a sneer that’s a shade too malicious.  Through the spurring of the crowd, he can still hear the critics sharpening their claws, ready with their unconcealed gleeful undertones for another castigation.</p><p>He sets the threat into his skin, steel gaze setting on the ball as he tackles with a burning intensity.</p><p>Barely five minutes later, Marc-Andre collects the ball in his area and plays a sublime pass to Serge, berating his backline for dipping from their formation as the ball travels across the pitch, when Kai notices acres of space floating clear in the box from where the defenders are anticipating Serge’s cross; arriving late just as his teammate’s boot makes contact with the ball.</p><p>It’s as simple, effortless as that, exploiting the space and breaking the offside trap, skidding slightly as he knocks the ball past the keeper and it’s like he’s drowned in the red, black and gold immediately.</p><p>Sometimes, he can’t stop himself from being a bit of an idiot when he scores, but the weight of the pride and overwhelming responsibility inhibits him.  He ambles towards Serge, who’s mouth is agape with praise Kai can’t hear over the crowd’s antics, but once he’s tangled in his friend’s arms, he has to stare at the floor, because he’s overcome with something like emotion and he doesn’t really want to show it.</p><p>Some of the team come careering into them, yelling shitty things at the top of their lungs that are indecipherable from their complex noise, but when the group disband, Kai sees Julian, keeping his distance, eyes glistening and if Kai didn’t know any better, he’d probably think it was <em>pride.  </em>He’s too excited to consider that it means Julian actually doesn’t give a shit about his first international goal, but he knows that once the adrenaline rush is over, once the crowd and their wavelength of exhilaration are long gone, there will be more time than he could ever need to think about it.</p><p>The feeling is almost killed instantly when they’re three inches from conceding the most hideous of goals directly from the restart.</p><p>From his goal, however, the game, which had been lagging and just felt like twenty minutes of meticulous scrutinising, begins to increase in pace with the more enjoyment he has of it.  Argentina are jaded from Germany’s quickfire double, his team are playing with their heads up, unlucky to miss a couple more chances, the exhalation following another missed chance only tinged with frustration once the referee blows the whistle for the end of the half.</p><p>As if his bubble has been severed, he remembers where he is, what’s just happened, and, worst of all, who blanked the whole aftermath.  He’s about to make a break for it, hide in the bathroom and only conveniently re-emerge for the start of the second half and hope tap water conceals how bloodshot his eyes will be, when he feels a lax arm slung over his shoulders.</p><p>“Hey,” Julian smiles, “congratulations.”</p><p>“Thanks,” he doesn’t even think about his arm, which finds a place on the small of the older man’s back with so much ease, like it belongs there, like it’s been there a million times.  There isn’t time for further conversation, because the coaching staff are poised to lecture from the second that they step through the door into the locker room, but Julian doesn’t let go.  Luca’s a little put out when he arrives back to see Julian in his seat.</p><p>Even before the room is full, Kai can feel the undercurrents of satisfaction, their performance has been mostly decent, but 2-0 is a dangerous lead and he can see the plan before they’re told it.</p><p>“Keep frustrating them,” Lӧw finishes with, the strategy unchanged, awkwardly accompanied by a few monotone words of praise.  “Havertz, you worked into the game well, you and Brandt linked up well.  Keep avoiding your marker, his head went out of it when you started retaliating with his provocation, that’s how you got free for your goal.  Just make sure you stay in the game, it’s obvious when your head isn’t in it, and if you keep doing it, I won’t hesitate to sub you off.”</p><p>Julian’s criticised about how his shots haven’t been clinical, which rubs Kai up the wrong way and he completely agrees with his former best friend when he mumbles, “can’t get free when I’m being played out of position,” his words inaudible to everyone apart from Kai, drowned out by their coach’s dulcet tones.  He can’t listen to the rest of it, he’s irrevocably intoned into the little hitch in Julian’s breath and he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t fucking him up.</p><p>Sometimes, when the mood is low, or Kai’s angry, the fifteen minutes of half time can feel like an hour, the clock in the corner of the dressing room ticking tantalisingly in a way that only makes Kai think about his Abitur exams.  But now, with Julian so close he can feel the warmth emanating off his skin and causing him to judder subconsciously, he’s sure they’ve barely been there thirty seconds when the referee’s voice comes hollering through the walls.</p><p>Lӧw’s trying to tell them something over the noise of scuffled attempts to get back towards the pitch, but none of them give a shit about what he’s got to say.  They’re all sure they’d do better if they didn’t have him anyway.</p><p>Despite the branding of the game, their opponents have evidently received a sharp warning to improve, because the intent possessed is more evident now than it was in the poking attempts that defined the first ten minutes of the match.  Kai’s instantly forced into a risky tackle he manages to blag his way out of getting booked for within the minute, the Argentine substitute fresh-faced and determination set heavy in his eyes.</p><p>He passes the ball back to Emre, tracks it as it’s passed forward to Julian, and almost loses his head when Rojo comes in, studs up, winning not only the ball but probably several chunks out of the Dortmund midfielder’s leg.  Right there, in that instant, Kai doesn’t see the twenty-three-year-old he’s still in love with at the end of all the bullshit, but another version of him, the realisation so grounding his legs stop.  He’s standing, awkwardly, in the middle of the pitch while the players begin to crowd around his former best friend, eyes trained on the spectacle, but <em>not seeing it.</em></p><p>
  <em>It had been raining while they’d been in the gym, Kai could see the waterlogged grass from where he was pulling his boots on, sort of listening to the girlish moans of his best friend who was claiming rain was still hammering down and they were all going to contract hypothermia, eliciting more than a couple roasts from Mitch who was adamant they’d all dealt with worse before.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Julian was so stubborn, Kai was almost sure he was just doing it to prove a point when he’d collapsed to the floor, face scrunched up against the pitch as the rain began to crash down on him, clutching at his ankle.  His heart had dropped to his stomach when he finally registered Julian’s agonised yell.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>As his best friend had been assisted off the pitch, taken directly to the medical department with barely concealed desperate yells reverberating around the complex, Kai had tried to go back to training.  The image of Julian had stuck in his eyes, his heart was beating too fast, and seconds later he’d teetered to the bin by the side of the pitch and was vomiting his guts out.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Really, he doesn’t have a clue how his teammates never guessed.</em>
</p><p>“WAKE THE FUCK UP, KAI!” Luca shoves him with a little bit more force than he expected, snapping him from his daydream.  The circle of concern had disbanded, Rojo coming off following an apparent yellow card for the challenge, and Julian was snaking his way back through the park in his usual classy style, not even the faintest trace of a limp.  Luca, Marco, they merge into one in Kai’s mind, screaming on-pitch messages that resonate too much with their outside life to be a coincidence.</p><p>As the pass he gets from Julian nestles on the inside of his foot, he ponders if he’s just being too fucking philosophical again.  As he gets tackled, sighs ringing down from the Südtribune high above him, he realises the answer is most certainly yes.</p><p>Lucas comes on the field a couple minutes later, the atmosphere a little nervy, shooting Kai a half-smile as he enters the field, but Kai’s sure his match must be almost over when his club teammate makes it the whole way through the defence and slots the shot past Marc-Andre, rolling off in celebration and instantly, they’re within one. </p><p>But it isn’t his new number that shines high in incriminating red.  It’s Julian’s.</p><p>He’s the other side of the field from where Julian’s coming off, there’s no way he’ll be able to get to him to maybe pat his back or throw his arms around him, he’d have decided during the approach.  Instead, he’s stood there, probably looking almost forlorn as he stares at Julian, head hung, shoulders drooping in the way Kai knows means he’s berating himself, traipsing off the pitch.</p><p>He doesn’t even notice Nadiem coming on, even though he should probably be welcoming him, congratulating him on his debut.  He can’t, he just doesn’t get why he’s being kept on while Julian, always their best player even when he’s not on the pinnacle of his game, is taken off without any acknowledgement from their coach.</p><p>It’s only a friendly, it should not bother him this much.</p><p>With the tiniest shake of his head, he fixates his eyes on the ball, collects the pass rolling off Nadiem’s first touch, tries to find Serge with a pass that could’ve been so incisive, except the defender reads it perfectly and instantly, there’s the resurgence of that doubt, the snarky comments that lurk on the depths of the internet, primed for another night when he’s too terrified of nightmares to sleep and wants to surround himself in people who hate him just as much as he does.  Them, and Noah, who could be in Australia on holiday for all he knows, but it feels like his eyes are trained on the back of Kai’s neck, the words he said that claimed Julian and Kai were together, how close Julian’s rapist is to getting back in contact with the him just because of <em>Kai</em>.</p><p>He swallows thickly just as he gets knocked to the floor by a sliding tackle.</p><p>The groundless apprehension that flows through him jumps nervously, he’s just preparing himself to lash out at the perpetrator, anger fizzling like a damaging promise, when he notices the culprit isn’t even by his side anymore.  That it was such a tame challenge in comparison to most, and his interpretation belies way more about his mental state than it could about anyone else.</p><p>The referee shoots him an incredulous look when he says, “thank fuck,” when the substitution board is raised in the air again and it’s him this time, because he doesn’t want to play anymore, doesn’t want to lose what remains of his joy from his goal.  He takes a seat alongside Jonas wordlessly, Julian halfway down the row and talking intendedly to Marco.</p><p>From his place, the pitch resembles a cauldron of hell, and this was it, this was what Kai was afraid off all of last week.  Invisible burn marks litter his skin, merge with the scars from occasions of broken porcelain.  If Jonas says anything to him, he doesn’t hear it.</p><p>The rest of the match doesn’t hold his attention, he doesn’t even realise they’ve conceded until the inevitable expletives ring around the bench.  It’s an anti-climax that suits Kai’s apathy.  His legs have gone dead by the time they trudge back to the locker rooms, only getting their stuff together with any degree of speed because of Lӧw’s incessant reminders that they have a plane to catch, as if it would leave without them.</p><p>He’s trying to swallow down the rising fire in his throat as he gazes out of the window of the bus, trying to tune out the gorgeous cascade of Julian’s voice from the seat in front.  They’re flying from Dortmund airport, but they still have to travel through the quieter, richer districts to get there, and as if he can sense it, his body feels like it’s been inverted and stuck there, when he hears Marco’s voice,</p><p>“Hey, there’s your flat, Jule,” he says, pointing up at an apartment block, and it’s just then Kai remembers that he hasn’t actually been to Julian’s new home, didn’t know where it was.  “You should ask the driver to stop so you can pick up that aftershave you forgot.”</p><p>“Fuck off,” Julian says, shoving his captain and causing the slightly-old seats to rock dangerously, “I don’t need it that badly.  I smell beautiful.”</p><p>Kai’s never wanted to cut into a conversation so badly.</p><p>Julian’s flat stays in Kai’s eyesight long after the bus has left the district.  They’re in the airport not fifteen minutes later, fast-tracked through security, and if their head coach had his way, would be physically thrown through the glass windows of the terminal and onto the plane.  The sudden intensity of it all does mean there’s none of the usual shouts as people find out who they’re sat next to, scramble to swap and be next to their closest friends (although Kai’s pretty sure Lӧw would veto that just to earn some peace from Leon for two hours).  All Kai knows is he’s got a window seat, and because he’s the first one on the plane, he’s sat there for a while, watching the service team de-ice the plane before he hears someone settle into the seat next to him.</p><p>“Hey,” his former best friend slightly chokes out, looking altogether uncomfortable and Kai just wants to kill himself, because Julian, hair all matted, unbrushed hair and the faintest trace of sweat lingering, skin flushed over his collarbone, is so fucking gorgeous he could never go back to looking at the maintenance, but there’s no way he’s going to be able to get through this without kissing him.  “Are you okay with me sitting here?”</p><p>“I’m going to have to be,” he says, too fast and all wrong.  “Don’t think Lӧw’s in the mood for any seat changing shit.”</p><p>Julian huffs a laugh, the kind that does nothing to help the overbearing awkwardness that’s settled between them.  To make it worse, Robert’s sat on Julian’s other side, already asleep.</p><p>He’s trying not to look at the older one, body worn out from the inhumane effort required to tear his eyes away the first time, when Julian speaks again, and <em>fuck</em>, Kai despises how well he knows him.</p><p>“Are you okay?  You, um, used to hate flying.”</p><p>“I still do,” he offers, still trying to find the tone that doesn’t make his attempt at a joke sound embarrassingly forced.  It’s closer, less uncomfortable than a minute ago in the fractions of space that separate them, but he knows where to look for the uncertainty in Julian’s eyes, isn’t surprised to find it obvious.  “Thanks, you know, for asking.”</p><p>“I couldn’t not,” Julian says, the kind of unplaceable weight behind it that leads Kai to think the sentiment wasn’t intended for him at all, especially not when the older one adds, louder now, “there’s been too many flights where I’ve had to try and comfort you for me not to check.”</p><p>“That’s true,” Kai’s eyes are somewhere on the floor now, still ashamed at the way his hands clutch the armrests as the plane reverses out of the terminal; despite the allusion to the fact Julian’s seen it all before.  His mannerisms are all convoluted, because his mind is orchestrating a dissonance of fear that makes him want to recoil into himself, yet his face has this smile he briefly considers might even be infallible, because Julian, even though Kai’s plainly aware there’s been previous attempts, has somehow managed to be fucking successful at worming into his emotions with the soft smiles and delicate caregiving. </p><p>His body shakes in synchronicity with the slight oscillations of the plane as it taxies to the runway.  Squeezing his eyes shut, he hopes they’ll knock the thought that he’d give anything for Julian to hold his hand like he used to straight out of his head.</p><p>As a professional footballer, he spends a solid proportion of his life aboard aircraft, to the point where it should not invoke terror like it still does.  When he flew home, alone, from that fated trip to Barcelona, he was too heartbroken, too distracted to listen to the torments of the worried signals subjecting plane crashes and the death rate, but now, with Julian back beside him, historically his everlasting symbol of comfort, Kai’s not felt this scared in a long time.</p><p>“We’ll be fine,” Julian’s voice cuts through his contemplation, almost inaudible over the rumble of the aircraft hurtling down the tarmac.  He can’t stop himself from wondering, that if it was anyone else, if he would’ve heard it at all.</p><p>With a vicious swallow and a prayer that would be way too late if the outcome it begs against were to happen, they’re in the air.  Kai’s stomach swoops lowly, weird familiarity to the convulsions that precede vomit during panic attacks (and there’s another shudder, the realisation that he just compares negative emotions to the throes of his vulnerability like it’s normal, or healthy in any way), his lungs screaming from oxygen depletion by the time he’s finally calm enough to breathe properly again.</p><p>Julian asks his question with his eyes, nodding without question at the slight gasp of Kai’s answer.</p><p>If he had the bravery, if they weren’t surrounded by their teammates in an inescapable place, he might have told Julian he shouldn’t merely accept whatever Kai says without question, because with every minute, every miniscule interaction, the acrid feeling of betrayal only deepens.  Kai doesn’t deserve his former best friend even paying him a second glance, doesn’t have the slightest idea of why Julian is so insistent on doing it (perhaps, it’s something to do with the way Kai led him on the evening of his birthday, writing over whatever explanation he could’ve received with his own arousal), but even though it was entirely accidental and almost coercive on Noah’s part, Kai still doesn’t know exactly how severe Julian’s reaction is going to be.</p><p>He risks a glance at the older one, who’s scrolling through something on his phone, and it slips out before he has chance to bite it back, or, if he couldn’t keep it back, could’ve at least altered the volume so it isn’t so damn <em>loud</em>.</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“What?” Julian says, stuffing his phone in his pocket and turning to him.</p><p>His stutters not only bring around a repeat of the initial discomfiture, but also practically scream that he’s lying directly into the face of the man who used to be able to read him better than anyone.</p><p>“You’re not going to,” Julian trails off, clearly wishing Kai would catch his drift so he doesn’t have to voice whatever’s on his mind, but even if he did understand, he wouldn’t say anything.  The least they can do is start fucking talking to each other, get past these barriers that Kai knows he is more than simply half-responsible for.  “You’re not going to have a panic attack, are you?”</p><p>“No,” his response is blunt, caught somewhere halfway between annoyed and slightly charmed.  “I just wanted to check that you were okay, the Rojo tackle was bad, and you looked upset when you got subbed off.”</p><p>“Yeah, thanks,” Julian says, pulling down his socks to where Kai can see a small, angry, red gash and the prominent outline of Rojo’s studs, “it hurt like a bitch at the time, but it’s fine now.  Just another battle scar.”</p><p>“I’m proud that you’re not whining relentlessly like you used to.” Mentioning the past is explicit playing with fire when it comes to the two of them now, but Julian toyed with the flames earlier, and if he did, there is no way Kai is going to let himself be outdone.  Judging by the way his former best friend laughs, reclining back into his seat with a gentle shake of his head that almost resembles disbelief and a million exchanges they’ve had in the past, Julian, in some roundabout way, appreciates the comment.</p><p>If he had it his way, Julian would be thinking that maybe Kai does remember.  He isn’t, because Julian doesn’t have feelings for him, never has, so there’s no way he’d join Kai in excessive philosophy, but that does nothing to stop the fantasising. He’s caught in that secret garden for an indeterminable amount of time before Julian speaks up again,</p><p>“I’m sorry I didn’t come and join the celebrations when you scored.”</p><p>“That’s okay,” he’s stuck between what he fears Julian might say, what he wants him to say so badly, and the more than likely chance he’ll say nothing at all.  Yet, for once, there must be some semblance of mercy bestowed upon him.</p><p>“I just--,” the stammer gives Kai the confidence to gaze properly at Julian without feeling illicit, “I didn’t know if you’d want me there, that’s all.”</p><p>Really, Kai should reward Julian with as much honesty as he can muster and tell him he’d rather be in Julian’s arms alone, than with the rest of the entire fucking team swarming him, but he can’t.  There’s too much left unsaid, Kai’s hidden too much precious context to be able to say stuff like that as if it’s offhand, and, as though all his positive thoughts are laced with trapdoors that cause him to fall through to negative passages, he becomes painfully aware of the time bomb, ticking with more intensity than he remembers.  It hasn’t gone anywhere, yet its culmination draws ever nearer.</p><p> “I thought you didn’t want to be there.”</p><p>“Oh, I did, but you know, things haven’t been the best between us recently and it was one of the biggest moments of your life…” Julian’s voice chokes up slightly, and for one terrible second Kai thinks he’s about to start crying, but then he breathes, looks away, speaks, “I remember you being so excited about it when you were younger.  I didn’t want to ruin it for you.”</p><p>“You wouldn’t have done that,” it’s about all he can give.</p><p>Reflection snatches them into its thorny embrace, forcing them headfirst back into the ghosts.  Kai isn’t sure how long he’s been staring out of the little window, watching the blackness pass by, tries to spot the clouds from the small glints of light still in the cabin.  He doesn’t want to accept that might be it, Julian might deem it too awkward to pursue any further, but Kai’s been flung on the most extreme rollercoaster, and after he’s recovered from the shock, all he wants to do is ride it again.  The best part of an hour might pass in the strange existence’s captures.</p><p>The operator slams the button to activate the ride as Julian speaks again, with a renewed sense of something personal that might just be the undertone that belies how he’s not sure if he wants Kai to hear it. </p><p>“You still have my number blocked.”</p><p>“Shit, do I?” He answers, sounding way to surprised for something he implicitly knew.  In the background, with such a foreign sense Kai and Julian might be in their own plane, or maybe tumbling through the sky together towards hell, pain, death, god-knows-what, the pilot instructs the cabin crew to prepare for landing.</p><p>“You do, and I was wondering if that was still necessary?”</p><p>Julian’s making a mockery of him, there’s no way he’d ask a question as loaded as that without knowledge of the implications behind it.  Blocking him, digitally, and the failed attempts to block him from his heart, was founded on lies anyway.  Lies Julian knows.</p><p>“No,” he answers, grabbing his phone from where it’s fallen during the flight, “I suppose it isn’t.”</p><p>He wants to know if Julian’s aware he can feel his eyes on him as he clicks the ‘unblock,’ button on his contact.  There’s no service thousands of metres in the sky, even when they’re rapidly declining as they come into the Estonian capital, but that knowledge doesn’t prevent his disappointment mounting when there’s not a sudden flurry of texts.  Maybe, if he wishes hard enough, there’ll be some sort of love confession.</p><p>Only his trepidation about his own reaction causes him to switch the damn thing off when the wheels of the aircraft hit the runway, because if there is anything like that, he’ll need to digest it when he’s in the solitary comfort of his hotel room.  He already knows he’ll be alone.</p><p>The last time he was in the arrivals area of an airport with Julian, he snapped something that pretended he despised him; only because Julian, when he’s a perceived enemy, is less of a danger to him.  Friendly Julian, the kind that Kai used to be convinced would die if he was ever <em>not </em>touching Kai in some way, knows all the little crevices that prise open who he really is.</p><p>If he lets him back there, he’s fucked.</p><p>“Goretzka, I swear to fucking god if you try anything,” Lӧw pre-emptively reprimands as they enter the hotel lobby, and it might seem unjust, but Leon is doing that smirk that Kai knows well enough to be a precondition to troublemaking, and one glance around the rest of the team show none of them are up for his shit.  Kai doesn’t even remember the bus journey here; it was all one big blur of trying to act like he wasn’t fucking freezing.</p><p>He tunes out whatever protest Leon fires back with.</p><p>By the time he’s fallen into bed, nestling in the sheets of the poky little room (but at least, the walls seem to be thick this time), he’s forgotten the whole thing about messages from Julian, but once he gets them, it might as well be as though there’s a massive time difference and his body clock is adjusted to somewhere eight hours behind.</p><p><strong>Julian: </strong>kai?</p><p><strong>Julian: </strong>what the fuck do you mean you don’t want anything to do with me?</p><p><strong>Julian: </strong>why the fuck aren’t these messages sending?</p><p><strong>Julian: </strong>SEND</p><p>He isn’t sure how many he expected, doesn’t expect the month time gap between the first four (from that summer night where Sophia’s face turned white with shock) and the next ones, but it’s what they say that really makes him die a little inside.</p><p><strong>Julian:</strong> i’m sorry</p><p><strong>Julian: </strong>oh, you still haven’t unblocked me</p><p><strong>Julian: </strong>never mind</p><p>There’s a few more testers along the same vein, but then they peter out.  He doesn’t know what inspires it, maybe someone slipped vodka in his water bottle and now he’s intoxicated, and Dutch courage is morphing stupid ideas into brilliant-sounding ones, but his fingers work, typing out a message that he sends before he gives himself the chance to delete it.</p><p><strong>Kai: </strong>i’m sorry for blocking you</p><p><strong>Julian: </strong>that’s okay</p><p><strong>Julian: </strong>i did kind of pressure you into unblocking me, so i guess we’re even</p><p>It takes him blinking idiotically at the screen for a few seconds before his brain finally starts to register what this means.</p><p><strong>Kai: </strong>i should’ve done it a while ago i guess i just forgot</p><p><strong>Julian: </strong>i don’t blame you</p><p><strong>Julian: </strong>i won’t lie</p><p><strong>Julian: </strong>i was tempted to unblock myself when you gave me your phone in the common room earlier</p><p><strong>Kai: </strong>when my mum called?</p><p>Kai sits up to get a better angle, heart beating explicably fast every time his eyes fall upon the little dots on the corner of the screen, moving in parallel with the little clock, ticking through the minutes into the late night.  None of their conversation is really that important, it’s all overly polite and almost formal, evoking a weird sense of wistfulness when Kai can’t help himself from scrolling up to their previous chats; shutting his eyes purposefully as he passes the Barcelona texts.</p><p>But really, he’d spend forever texting Julian, just because he didn’t realise how fucking much he missed this.</p><p><strong>Julian: </strong>fuck</p><p><strong>Julian: </strong>it’s really late and i know how you need your sleep</p><p><strong>Kai: </strong>i’ll be okay</p><p><strong>Julian: </strong>no you won’t</p><p><strong>Julian:</strong> go to bed kai</p><p><strong>Julian:</strong> i’ll see you in the morning</p><p><strong>Kai: </strong>goodnight, then</p><p><strong>Julian: </strong>goodnight, kai x</p><p>Julian definitely falls asleep quicker than Kai does, in whatever room he’s in, purely because Kai spends fuck knows how long staring at the tiny kiss on the end of the message. It’s so inconsequential, but Kai can’t stop himself from thinking about all the doors that lurk behind it. </p><p>It spells trouble.</p><hr/><p>
  <em> <strong>tallinn, estonia </strong> </em>
</p><p>Lethargy runs through his blood, feeling as if he’s been imbued with lead as he groans, barely raising his head three inches before collapsing, exhausted, down into the pillows.  His alarm is blaring, announcing that it’s half past seven and he’s supposed to be at the breakfast table in under fifteen minutes, and he’s already under silent surveillance following his inconsistent antics back in Dortmund, so if he’s even two minutes late he just knows Manu’s going to be on the warpath.</p><p>Even so, as he climbs gingerly to his feet, he debates whether it’s worth feigning illness.  His head throbs in a way that can only resemble a hangover, and when he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he’d be shocked at how shit he looks if he wasn’t so desensitised.</p><p>It’s his own damn fault, he knew what he was doing with every minute he stayed awake talking to Julian, but he just couldn’t stop himself; yet now, as he flicks back through the previous evening’s conversation, there was nothing special about it that should imply anything that should elicit that response from him.  The smallest mercy is he can at least tell himself he blames it on his drowsiness-induced delirium.  He doesn’t need to think about the fact that he was anything other than tired.</p><p>His socks might not be a matching pair, but he couldn’t give less of a shit as he almost falls head-first down the stairs, and he knows how bad he’s feeling when it reminds him of finding Julian sprawled out on the top of the hotel stairs on his birthday, and he doesn’t even crack a smile.  It’s easier to avoid everyone’s watchful eyes as he enters the dining hall, taking his plate of food and sitting on one of the emptier tables.</p><p>The hall gets louder, but his table remains deserted, and he’s just about to work up the nerve to ask someone if there’s an issue with him sitting there, when Julian places his plate down on the place mat next to him, even managing to be quiet with the metal chair legs for once in his life. </p><p>“Morning,” Julian says.</p><p>Kai’s not sure what he can’t stand more, the fact that every initial conversation-starter sounds like a peace offering in their mouths, or the fact that Julian’s obviously assuming everything’s back to normal purely because Kai didn’t feel like the shittiest person on Earth for three hours last night.  But even that’s incomparable to the fact that he can’t just accept this anymore, especially when he knows the him of five months ago would’ve killed for it.</p><p>It’s a disconcerting amount of time before he mumbles a response of his own.</p><p>“Tired?”</p><p>“How did you know?”</p><p>“Well, I did keep you up last night,” Julian smiles, trying his best to look amicable, and the food Kai’s trying his best to swallow is threatening to come back up.  He has to look away.  “And I also know all the little tricks you do when you’re tired, the way you duck your head like you’re trying to hide the bags underneath your eyes---,”</p><p>“Stop,” Kai says, a little too loud and a little desperate, because if Julian doesn’t shut up his breakfast is definitely going to make a reappearance.  Really, he knows it’s going to happen at some point, but he needs to get away from Julian and all his little recollections before it’s too late.  “Please, Julian, just shut up.”</p><p>“Okay,” the older one says, in that offended voice Kai knows <em>so well</em>. </p><p>“Sorry,” he says, already rising and moving to run away, “I just can’t talk to you right now.”</p><p>It doesn’t make any sense, he knows Julian’s going to protest, so he has to get out of the room before his former best friend gets the chance.  It’s a miracle he manages to put his plate on the washing up pile without shattering it into a million tiny shards.</p><p>When he has a panic attack, his head spins, his throat closes, and if he vomits, it kind of feels like how he imagines being drowned might, bones freezing solid as he loses himself in this bottomless, artificial world, but this time it’s different, and in some inconspicuous way, even more scary.  If he’s normally drowning, now he’s left on shore, stranded and gasping for breath, not quite dead but not quite alive either, the only coherent thought being of uninhibited fear for even the next fucking second.</p><p>The only thing he can register is the stench.</p><p>His back rests, more as a necessity than an intention, against the door of the shower cubicle, the rut along the bottom digging into his back, inflicting the tiniest, sharpest stabs of pain that he’s inherently grateful for, if only because he knows they’ll keep him afloat.</p><p>Flushing the remains of his breakfast down the toilet, he drags himself to his feet, arms spread wide in case the whole floor moves beneath him and he stumbles forward into the sink.  He doesn’t, stares back at the reflection of a shell of a person that vaguely resembles him in the mirror as he brushes his teeth, cringing at the taste of mint attacking the residue of vomit.</p><p>He’s never had a transfer that’s affected him this deeply due to his age, and hopes to god he never has to go through it again, but he’s glad he’s at least got enough experience that his body follows the necessary routine, pulling on the training clothes, stares blankly at the mess of curls on his forehead, combing them twice and hoping it’s styled enough to look like a bad hair day.</p><p>The robotic method of getting through his day is occurring way more than it should do.  He’s only adapted to do it because he’s got no choice but to play football, but as he joins the amalgamation of teammates conversing as they wait for the bus in the hotel lobby, he’d give anything to be back in bed, maybe asleep, or even just gazing into nothingness would be better than this.</p><p>Sophia’s effortless sense has ingrained a tiny part into him, and it’s screaming that she and Lotta have absolutely done the right thing with setting him up with therapy sessions.  The thoughts aren’t so much as maladaptive as totally destructive, and with every occurrence he’s slipping deeper into the hole he thought he’d hit rock bottom of miles upwards of here.</p><p>Unplaceable agony courses through his veins when he’s unintentionally pushed to the front of the group and has to be the first one onto the bus, and he knows exactly what it means.  He’d been trying to hang back, maybe sit next to someone he didn’t know so well so he wouldn’t be dragged into a conversation of left with a cringeworthy, awkward silence, but his distraction means that he knows he’s going to be a hot commodity of seat partner choice for the members of the team who are still trying to break him down.</p><p>No matter how they try to cover it up, he can see it in their eyes, in the quick glances dotted between more people than he wishes to count that they try to make discrete, but he sees them.  He’s a sitting duck, they’re mauling at him, and pretty soon there’s going to be nothing left.</p><p>Yet, even with his accomplices, he’s still the guiltiest of all.</p><p>“Leon and Julian went off together,” Serge says, probably thinking Kai actually realised he was standing in the aisle next to him.  “You’re not going to bite my head off if I sit here, are you?”</p><p>It’s meant as a joke, Kai knows that, but all he hears is criticism, barely masked comments about how flammable he is.  For an instant, he regrets the relief that flooded through him when he saw Serge claim the seat.</p><p>“No,” he says, irrelevant either way, because Serge has already sat, and the bus has left the hotel.</p><p>“Jule said you weren’t in a talkative mood today,” Serge tries, and Kai’s just about to silently snap when he notices the earphone the Bayern midfielder is proffering.  “So instead, do you just want to sit here and listen to music with me?”</p><p>He can’t be alone, but he’ll take this mental solitude.  It helps that Serge has essentially the same music taste as the playlist Kai likes too much to want to taint by listening to when he’s feeling shit.  The training ground isn’t far, and by the time Kai’s managed to calm his jitters to the point he’s confident enough to stand without either collapsing or vomiting all over the team bus, they’ve arrived.</p><p>If he was one of the more mysterious characters in the national team, they’d perhaps think he was hungover.  But he’s just Kai, the fucked-up, fragile kid who everyone needs to protect in one particular way, or he’ll break.</p><p>From the other side of the semicircle surrounding their coach, Kai can feel Julian’s eyes on him, or rather, pierce through him, probably read his mind, just to allow Julian to make Kai the punchline of every single joke he’s going to make.  He thinks of his former best friend, a little older, partner on the other end of the sofa, both in hysterics as Julian recounts how overdramatic this kid he used to be friends with was, the partner throwing around comments about how he made a lucky escape and Julian agreeing with them, laughter-enabled tears staining his eyes.</p><p>Kai keels lightly, to the point he’s wondered if he’s eaten something dodgy.</p><p>His stomach churns in the most grimly teasing way as they’re split into groups for the session, once he notices Julian approaching him, strained smile plastered on his face.  He wishes he could blame the way he stares at the ground on the intensity of the sun.</p><p>Manu’s booming voice should be way too loud for the small corner of the training pitch their group has occupied, but Kai couldn’t be more grateful to hear it.  There’s no way he’ll be subjected to hushed conversations he doesn’t have time to dread if Manu’s patrolling their area, barking instructions and ensuring every drill is completed to perfection.  Sometimes his nature is overbearing, but today it’s a lifeline.</p><p>“Pick it up, Havertz!” The captain yells, as if on cue, and it’s the sudden onset of fear rather than motivation that prompts Kai to quicken his pace on the warmup circuit.  Focusing on that, trying not to trip on the horizontal ladders, at least allows him to sort of forget the lingering threat of sickness.</p><p>It’s the part when they’re called in to suffer Lӧw’s droning on of absolutely irrelevant shit that’s the worst, because in addition to the dreariest accompaniment imaginable, Julian’s standing behind him, breathing heavily and Kai can’t stop himself from concentrating on his presence.  In times past, Julian might have slung his arms over Kai’s shoulder and whispered something idiotic, not caring about how obvious their gossip was, or maybe Kai would’ve brushed his hand as they go back to their training area, murmured something with a tone dependent on the content.</p><p>The risk of the possibility Julian could catch him filled him with such a childish thrill.  He can’t conceive ever going back to that state now.</p><p>There’s a brief moment of horror when his former best friend taps him on the shoulder as they walk, Kai so out of it he might have been talking to himself and exposing everything to Julian, who’s so nosy there’s no way he wouldn’t have listened.  But he hasn’t, because all Julian wants to know is if Kai wants to join him, Leon and Serge when they go into Tallinn sightseeing after practice.</p><p>“No,” his response is unenthused to the point of curt, which only causes another awkward moment where their eyes sort of meet, both feeling as though it’s forbidden.  Julian’s just about to turn away when Kai realises how rude he’s been, and he’s suddenly desperate to keep Julian’s gaze on him, but the emotion he was void of has returned, tenfold stronger than before, “but thank you for offering.”</p><p>Frustration seeps into his mind when Julian does that face Kai knows means he wants to say something but won’t.  It might be the only thing he’s learnt about Julian since he left, because before, Julian would blurt out anything, no matter how problematic or dense it might have been.  It’s education of his own doing.</p><p>The sentiment’s gone before Kai reaches a conclusion on the debate of whether or not he should comment on it.  Julian’s moved away, talking quietly to Manu before the captain’s summoned away for the beginnings of goalkeeper training, and the outfield players are left standing, waiting for whatever they’re made to do in their small groups.</p><p>Kai’ll never get over how gut-wrenching the pain is when he flicks a ball on and Julian’s there immediately, innate knowledge of exactly what Kai’s doing.  It floors him during the miniature rondos, the five-a-sides, and most of all during the practice match, where their teamwork almost causes Manu to blow a blood vessel at his defence for the amount of goals the two of them and Serge get past him.</p><p>They’re almost laughing when they stumble back into the locker room, Serge’s arm locked round Kai’s shoulder, joking about how they’ll have to watch their dinner that night for the poison Manu’s going to put in it.  It brings a grin to Kai’s lips for the amount of time up until Julian’s eyes meet his from the other end of their group of teammates, and the smile drops immediately, because there’s something in Julian’s eyes that he can’t place.  Now that he can get a good view, it’s not the first time he’s seen it, there was something oddly similar in his expression a lot of the time back in Leverkusen, although suspiciously absent on the nights they spent alone together.  But it’s melted with something else, that his best guess only says is angered confusion.</p><p>Julian mouths something Kai misses in his distraction.</p><p>“Good job today, Kai,” Lӧw says in passing, as Kai’s untying his bootlaces.  There isn’t time to respond, the coach’s back disappearing towards where the bus is already waiting, but it’s loud enough for some of the team in Kai’s vicinity to turn to him, throwing congratulations mixed in with light-hearted jaunts about being a teacher’s pet.</p><p>Manu’s silent, but then again Kai expected that.  He’s not surprised by Julian’s silence, but a little crack forms in his heart when he spots the older man staring at the floor, lips moving without sound.  Kai’s so weak, it’s that easy to get him to feel like shit again.</p><p>No one meets his eyes when he sneaks a glance at Julian shirtless, pointedly reminding himself that they’re not like they used to be, but for all the pain, the clarity they’ve never spoken about but assume with the most dysfunctional dynamic, it hasn’t relayed to Kai’s hormones.  Julian has always been effortlessly stunning, he’s thought that since they first spoke to one another in Berlin, but there’s something about him that Kai didn’t notice before.  He might have been too close to watch its development, but it could be a new thing, something he’s found in Dortmund.  It’s a glow, it makes Kai feel like he’s been set on lovesick fire, the immeasurable agony associated with burning replaced by something equally as destructive.</p><p>Even looking at Julian kills him on the inside.  He conceals the sensation with nothing more than a wince.</p><p>The remains of his happiness from his goal made it okay to train, but the instant he’s back on the bus, his stomach lurches like it’s timed to the second.  He slams his head against the back of the seat in front of him, plugging his earphones in and playing something gentle, trying to curb the slow spinning of the scene.  He can feel someone’s sudden presence, hears his name in an indecipherable voice that he couldn’t and doesn’t want to respond to, is just debating on how best to throw himself out of the bus window without attracting attention when the bus starts moving.</p><p>He catches a glimpse of himself in the wing-mirrors as he exits the bus following the journey, which was apparently only eight minutes but felt like an entire lifetime, cringes viscerally as he spots how white his face has turned, colour even drained from his lips.</p><p>The tick of his time bomb is temporarily halted by a far more pressing matter, the fact that’s he’s got maybe five minutes before more sick comes up.  Out of the corner of his eye, as he tries to make his way through the lobby without anyone clocking his ghostly face and bringing him into a conversation that’s only going to result in someone’s expensive shoes being covered in vomit, he spots Leon, Serge and Julian group together, and doesn’t have time to prepare for the shrill of Leon’s call before it wafts through the air to him.</p><p>“Kai!  Aren’t you joining us?”</p><p>Kai doesn’t stop, doesn’t look, but he can hear the footsteps chasing him down and all he has time for is sending some sort of prayer before Leon jumps on his back and he almost lists over.</p><p>“Are you joining us?” He repeats, bellowing in Kai’s ear.</p><p>“No.  Please, get off me,” he screams, desperation knocking out his inhibitions even though he can feel everyone’s eyes on him, the intense heat forcing another violent squeeze through his stomach.  He feels as if he’s being broadcasted to the world when he takes a deep breath, amplified by the silence, and says, tone trembling entirely unconvincingly, “I just don’t feel very well.”</p><p>If it’s plaintive, at least it resembles a child.</p><p>“That’s quite enough, Goretzka,” Manu’s voice, as much a saviour now as it was back on the training pitch, echoes, and in the slightest second everyone’s distracted by the slightest rumblings of a scene, Kai uses the chance to escape.</p><p>Running just makes him feel worse, but he doesn’t have a choice.  Somehow, he finds the key stuffed in his jacket pocket on the journey, almost clattering into the door in his hurry, darting into the bathroom and shoving his head over the bowl before the door has even slipped shut.</p><p>He’s trembling by the time he even gets a moment to breathe, stomach convulsing with warning.  It gets to the point he’d be convinced it was something he ate if it wasn’t for the fact no one else in the team is affected, and they’ve all eaten the same food.  It’s another symptom to add to his endless list of woe.</p><p>It takes almost the same amount of time for him to clamber to his feet than it does for him to stumble, slowly, hands splayed on the wall like he’s trying to grip on for dear life, to his bed.  The sheets feel cool against his skin, stripping off his shirt and throwing it on the floor somewhere, lying down and simply existing for an amount of time he couldn’t begin to hazard a guess at, blissfully ignoring the increasingly-repetitive buzzing from his phone from some group chat or other that has decided to come alive.</p><p>It adds a quiet backing track that forces a barrier between the intrusive thoughts and his mind.</p><p>At some point, his eyes roll from the mundane detail of the hotel room to the large windows leading to a balcony Kai knows he isn’t going to use, squints against the sunlight until his eyes adjust and he can just make out the cityscape sprawling out on the near-horizon.  He’s been to a million cities, seen the outline of a concrete jungle so often there’s a weird sense of familiarity to a city he’s never visited before, wonders what it would be like up close if he didn’t feel so ill and so terrified and his heart didn’t skip a beat at the thought of exploring with Julian like they did when they were young and back in London.</p><p>The sigh rattles through his body.  The convicted chat was merely Kevin sending a meme of Kai’s face up next to Harvey Dent which only warrants a couple of laughing emojis before he changes to Instagram.  Sophia’s posted a pretty new photo, which he drops the necessary comment on for show (even though she is absolutely gorgeous), but nothing holds his attention.  His screen locks to black.</p><p>
  <em>In the back of his mind, he can hear Julian and his laughter ringing in his ears as they darted into a taxi, evading even Mitch and Sam who they’d escaped from most of the rest of the group with.  Julian had whispered underneath his breath that he wanted to go to The Mall, Marble Arch, Trafalgar Square, so Kai spoke to the driver in the politest English he could muster, watching the way Julian’s smile grew as they drove through the city, unable to tear his eyes away when he should’ve been appreciating where he was.  London was pretty, but nothing compared to Julian and the way his eyes shone.</em>
</p><p>If he tried it now, it’d be stunted sentences and awkward glances, and Julian’s eyes wouldn’t glisten with something alike to happiness, and the smile wouldn’t come to Kai’s lips with an intensity that seemed impossible to destroy.  Leon and Serge would be scrambling to tie knots in the tether, right as Kai and Julian seemed determined to walk off opposite ends of the earth to pull it apart.</p><p>He wouldn’t want to, but Julian would.  He’d create this whole anti-gravitational pull just to get Kai to leave him alone.</p><p>That’s why Kai’s utterly stunned when there’s an incessant series of knocks on his door, the kind that means he just knows he isn’t going to get a shot of peace until he deals with whatever shit the instigators want, and when he answers, the first person his gaze falls on is Julian.  His former best friend is leaning against the doorframe, eyes flickering a little nervously, looking like he’s swapped personalities with Jonas altogether because the Kӧln captain is smiling with an expression close to relaxation.  His hand is intertwined loosely with Toni’s, and it’s about the only sight Kai can bring himself to focus on before Marco speaks,</p><p>“Hey, Kai.  Can we come in?”</p><p>“Is it important?” He responds, trying not to make it sound bitchy, but judging by the look Marco and Julian fire at each other, he hasn’t succeeded.</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>There’s no way he’ll be able to deny them their access, if he refuses, they’ll just stick their foot in the door and force him to hear them out, he <em>knows </em>the look of determination etched into Marco’s face.  The only thing he can hope is that they don’t notice the repulsive stench from his fiasco earlier.  There’s a painful silence that falls upon the room, spans outward with its discomfort until it’s pressed against the glass of the windows, silently screaming to be set free, before turning, storming mercilessly towards Kai, wrapping a rope of threat around his neck and staring into his soul with reckless eyes, flame behind them intense enough to set even water alight.  It’s only when his line of sight crosses with Julian’s own does he speak, turning away from his former best friend and shivering from the humiliated warmth that spreads from his cheeks.</p><p>“Why are you here?”</p><p>“Fucking hell, he’s worse than I thought,” Toni mutters, probably intended to be under his breath, but the only thing louder is the sound of the slap Jonas gives his arm.</p><p>“We’re not giving up,” Marco says, “We are going to keep talking to you and one day, we are going to get through to you and you are going to open up to us.”</p><p>“Look, I appreciate your concern, really,” he can’t stop himself from finding Julian as he says so, and <em>fucking hell</em>, the rest of them might as well be on Mars for the amount of attention he pays them.  Julian makes all of them melt away.  He might as well tell them.  “But I’m getting therapy, and you guys have a game to prepare for, or a city to explore, so you shouldn’t keep wasting your time on me.”</p><p>His voice breaks a little when he references the plan he turned down.</p><p>“Leon and Serge went alone,” Julian says, sounding almost a little embarrassed.  “I wasn’t really in the mood for it after training.”</p><p>His response gets trapped in his throat, and it’s only then does he notice how it’s burning.  It doesn’t feel like he’s going to vomit again, but it’s dry, scratchy, like all the water in him is gathering in his tear ducts.  If he had to have anyone in his room right now, he’d want Sophia, knows she wouldn’t question it, she’d just stroke his hair until he was smiling again.  But she’s thousands of miles away, and all he’s got is the body that he knows how it feels in the middle of the night, knows the way he mutters nonsensical shit in his sleep.  And the other three, who have got their eyes fixated on him while he can’t stop staring.</p><p>“We’re trying because we care about you,” Toni says, much brasher than the others, and Kai’s always been a little scared of the strict foundation of his voice that only ever wavers when Jonas looks at him, but he’s never been more afraid than right now.  “You can’t keep turning people away, Kai, because very soon they’ll just give up on you entirely.”</p><p>“That’s what everyone keeps telling me,” he fires back, the lump in his throat getting thicker with every attempt to swallow it down.</p><p>“I don’t understand it, how you can go from being all joyful and chatty to so melancholy in such a short space of time,” someone, maybe Marco, says.  He doesn’t miss the way Jonas’ face turns to the floor, or the way Julian stiffens like someone’s brandished a bloody knife and pointed it in his direction.  Kai wonders if the time bomb will explode, but it still feels like it’s over a day from its capitulation at a minimum.</p><p>The match is in twenty-seven hours.  He can’t sit here, perched on the end of his bed, basking in the sweltering heat of their accusatory gazes, and act like there isn’t barbed wire on the rope tied around his neck, the barbs grating into his skin.  He can feel the gash forming on the skin, waits for the blood that never comes.  He can’t stay there, wait for them to produce their pitchforks and swords that linger behind the mock-perturbation of their words, watch everything they say just juxtapose the hate and annoyance that harden their eyes.  He can’t do it, they all know he’s a fucking coward, but nobody feels it more than him.</p><p>He mumbles something about needing to piss, rushes into the bathroom, drowning out the stutters of aborted comments with the click of the lock.  He doesn’t care how loud his back slams against the door, how ear-splitting the noise of him scraping against the wood when his legs give up and he slides to the floor.  He doesn’t have enough control over himself to be self-conscious when the first sob eventually wins the battle against his inhibitions like it was touted to the moment he realised there was conflict, doesn’t give a fuck that Marco, Jonas, Toni can all hear him outside and that he must look like a fucking idiot.</p><p>All he cares about is Julian and the fact he’s not fucking gone yet.</p><p>Since he’s been in Tallinn, he’s been trapped in this disturbing paradox where time seems to be passing by as an incomprehensible mess, while simultaneously each second feeling as if it lasted an hour.  He’s lost count of the number of things he’s missed due to being so fucking out of it.  He probably missed a million comments remarking on his now-uncharacteristic focus during training.</p><p>He could flush the toilet and pretend like there was nothing going on, but his eyes are already five times more bloodshot than they were when the group knocked on his door ten minutes ago.  They must have heard the initial sob, the noise giving way to cries so destructive he can’t make sound anymore, but he’s protected from them for as long as he can get away with.  He’s just out of reach, suspended there until they give up and essentially prove that all their self-righteousness was founded on falsities anyway.</p><p>It’s indescribably awful of him to treat them in such a manner, but he can’t stop himself.  He can text the apologies later, when he’s not around to see the flickers of disgust in their expressions.</p><p>He clutches his head as the next bout of sobs claim him.  He must look insane, it’s gotten to the point where the severity must have absolutely no relation to the activating event of Julian’s departure by now, because there is not a place in the world that he could’ve gone that would cause this.  He wonders if the legends about only ever having your heart shattered once are true, begs whoever’s in charge of his shitty existence to ensure that this is the famed heartbreak, because if there was anything worse than this, it is going to destroy him with so little mercy the concept would seem intangible.</p><p>There isn’t another second that he’s able to remain in his forced isolation, because right then, there’s banging on the bathroom door and Marco’s voice through the wood, agitation in its monotone,</p><p>“What the fuck are you doing in there?”</p><p>If he was to respond, they’d only get confirmation of what he’s sure they know to be true from the cracks in his voice, so he sits there, silence moulding into something that’s on the realm of sullen, body forced forward when Marco kicks the door.</p><p>“Don’t make me break in!”</p><p>The surge of pragmatism is so unfamiliar, he’s slightly worried he might be in the middle of a hot flush, but before his mind has caught up with his body, he’s on his feet, the door’s open, and Marco’s eyes are level with his.</p><p>“I’m glad you didn’t,” the captain says, “but I’ve decided it’s useless getting a whole group of people to try and get through to you, so we’re going to try a new tactic,” Kai doesn’t get a chance to protest before he’s marched, Marco’s hands locked on his shoulder, to the bed, sat down and forced to wait while Toni, looking back anxiously, and Marco leave the room.  Julian stands there, dithering in the doorway, and if Kai listened to the hopeless romantic side of him, he’d almost believe Julian would rather die than leave him alone.</p><p>“Julian,” Jonas breathes, so soft it’s almost inaudible, and only then does it hit Kai it’s the first thing he’s said since he arrived, “do what we agreed.  I’ll take care of him.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Julian’s voice is robotic, forced, unfeeling, forces a pit to sink in the apex of Kai’s stomach.  It’s just another stop on their carousel of pain, he thinks drily as Julian’s hands scrabble with the door handle, the door clicking shut behind him to leave a silent room.</p><p>The murderous tension seems worse now there’s only two of them available to slaughter.  The look on Jonas’ face belies that Kai is not the only victim.  He doesn’t try, but the memories from the last time he properly interacted with the captain of the local rivals blur in his mind, playing the scene before his eyes, when he was absolutely fucking wasted and lost it, screaming for Julian even though he was seventy five miles away, and Jonas was trying to grab him but he fainted, and he only found out later that he drove Kai home and left him with Mitch.</p><p>“I never thanked you for that.”</p><p>Jonas’ eyeline flicker to his face, and it’s roughly then does Kai see something he’s not sure how to feel about reflected in it.  It resembles recognition.</p><p>“For what?”</p><p>“Driving me home after the derby.”</p><p>“You shouldn’t thank me for that,” the older man says, holding his hand out to shut Kai up after he lets out a sound to the contrary, “you might have owed me after, but I scrubbed that debt by fucking up badly in your name.”</p><p>Dread seeps through his body, weighs him down, rips him of whatever strength might have been left, rendering him terror-dumbstruck and staring awkwardly at Jonas, unable to do anything but write the question on his face.    </p><p>Jonas drops his gaze, cheeks staining red in anguish, and Kai’s torn between wanting to hug him and shove him just to force the confession out.  He does neither.</p><p>“You must have been wondering how Julian found out about most of the issues, about why he wasn’t that surprised when you bolted during the last break--,”</p><p>“No, Jonas, please--,”</p><p>“I told him, Kai.  I’m sorry.”</p><p>Sometimes, when Kai goes into a panic-stricken state, his brain will provide him with the most random scenario it can conjure, poison it until he can’t imagine it the same again.  Right then, it sends him the river by the training complex back home, but Jonas is there too, placing weights and chains on him, wrapping them over his body, one hand holding his t-shirt by the scruff of his neck.  It isn’t until he feels the water creeping up his legs does he realise Jonas is lowering him slowly, but the moment the water rises above his head, the weapons dragging him down to the riverbed that seems miles down, it feels like it did back when he was thrown into the swimming pool by Jan as a kid.</p><p>The feeling that defined these months, the feeling that racked through him when he saw the tweet.</p><p>It might be okay, he desperately tries to console himself, maybe Jonas didn’t go into that much detail, maybe Julian just knows the extent that most of the team do, that Kai’s just struggling a little and having the odd panic attack.</p><p>“I told him everything, Kai, before you try and comfort yourself.”</p><p>A whole list of possible responses and what he comes out with is, “how did you know I was doing that?”</p><p>“I know the feeling, and I know the look on your face,” Jonas says, inching closer and Kai’s thoughts are yelling at the Kӧln captain to stay the fuck away before he lashes out violently, “but more on that later.  We need to talk through this more.”</p><p>“I’d rather not, so can you please just go?  You’ve told me what you needed to, haven’t you?”</p><p>“No, there’s a lot more that even you’ve left unsaid.” The response is so quick, so accusatory Kai is dangerously prone to decking him because it’s like he can see into his mind, worming into the weak spots and prising them open.  Unsaid words are his safe haven.</p><p>“Does it matter?  I’m not obligated to share my thoughts with everyone, and I hate the fact that you all seem to think I am!”</p><p>“Like Marco said, we care about you---,”</p><p>“If you really did, then you’d respect my wishes to be left alone!”</p><p>“We’re not respecting that wish because it’s unhealthy and you’re getting sick because of it,” Jonas says, using the slight stun of his words as a chance to sit down next to Kai. </p><p>“How long until you all give up on me?”</p><p>“Some of them, any time from tomorrow to eight years from now,” it’s a joke, but the atmosphere in the few inches of space between them is so off it sounds more like a criticism.  “But me, I’m not giving up on you ever, because I went through this same train wreck of emotion as you.”</p><p>“Does it get better?”</p><p>“Yes, but only if you work for it.”</p><p>“I went to a therapy session before the international break, and I’ve got some more when I go back,” he says, “but given I know you’ll want to talk to me about that, I need to ask you this first.  Why did you tell him?”</p><p>“I did it for you,” Jonas sighs, “I thought he would know how to deal with you, so I just thought I’d ask for some tips so we could all be helpful, but he had no idea about any of it, and made me to tell him.”</p><p>“I bet he found it hilarious.”</p><p>“If you define hilarious as giving the impression that he was about to break down crying, then yes.”</p><p>Kai almost feels bad.</p><p>“I didn’t want him to know.”</p><p>“I can understand that, but you’re surely self-aware enough to know he would have found out eventually anyway.”</p><p>Kai bites down the cutting comment with such a ferocity he can taste blood moments later, breaking the semblance of interpersonal contact he was having with the older man.  He doesn’t know if there’s anything else that could dissect that topic, and he’s spoken before he was privy to what he says,</p><p>“Tell me how you know how I feel.”</p><p>“People take advantage of me,” the older man sighs again, sounding way too old and wise and like he’s seen one too many horrors Kai isn’t even mature enough to know exist yet.  “They always have, and they still do to an extent, except now at least I’ve got Toni to look after me.  But back in school, I used to be such a pushover, and because I was from such a tiny place, everyone was <em>known by </em>something, and all I was good for was a half-decent defender for the school football team and the go-to person if someone needed to copy homework.”</p><p>Being from a city, spending his whole childhood always surrounded by people and buildings that all appeared the same, he always imagined Saarbrucken as a picturesque flow of individuality.  To hear of a reality which is synonymous with pubescent hell, it’s almost enough for him to shake his head in disbelief.</p><p>“The girls were always bored, the girl I sat next to in maths class was always complaining about the lack of boys to have sex with, there was a community where people would just pass each other around to sleep together, it was normal.  I tried to block it out and just play football, but after long enough, I got drunk at someone’s birthday party, and I woke up in some random girl’s bed with her head on my bare chest.”</p><p>“You weren’t… assaulted, were you?”</p><p>“I don’t remember any of it, but everyone says we both wanted it, so I’m inclined to believe them.”</p><p>“What happened after?”</p><p>“I didn’t know what to do, because I’d never had feelings for anyone really, so for some godforsaken reason my mind just decided I was in love with her, but all she wanted to do was sleep around… she used to kiss me goodbye to practice and go and fuck random men while I was gone.  Everyone treated me like such an idiot when I used to cry about it.  It built up and kept going until it suffocated me, and I felt as shit as you do now.” There’s so much brutal honesty in Jonas’ voice, it’s the most convincing comfort anyone’s ever offered him.  </p><p>“How could she do that to you?  How could they defend her?”</p><p>“I don’t know, but don’t go talking about this to Toni, because I’m pretty sure he already wants to go and set fire to all of my hometown as revenge.”</p><p>“I don’t blame him,” Kai says, a tiny bit of the tension dissipating.  For him, it’s easier to do it this way, to divert Jonas to a tangent and then end the conversation without the older man having achieved his aim, even though he can hear the sadness dripping from his words.  Even so, despite his never-ending attempts at deflection, there’s a joyous feeling of being somewhat understood, and not just made to announce everything he’s feeling like he’s some sort of walking diary.</p><p>“It wasn’t fun, and it fucked me up for years.  Some days it still does.”</p><p>“How do you deal with it?”</p><p>“I talk,” Jonas answers, not concealing the pointed nature of the comment, “first it was to a therapist, but since I learned the techniques and can apply them to myself, all I need to do now is talk to my family or Toni.  That’s why I’m delighted at the news you’re seeing someone to get help.”</p><p>“I didn’t really have a choice,” he smiles laconically, “a couple of my friends literally put me in a car and didn’t tell me where they were going until we were almost there.”</p><p>“Maybe that was for the best.  I think I’ve seen enough to know you’re not exactly the most willing to talk about how you’re feeling.”</p><p>“I just feel so humiliated,” he admits, although the lack of reaction on Jonas’ face belies he completely expected it.  “Like, all this shit has stemmed from a friend, that I sort of was a little bit in love with,” he stammers, cursing internally at the visible cogs jerking in the older man’s mind, “just from him leaving.  It happens all the time in football.”</p><p>“You’re right, but you can’t hate yourself for that forever.  If you think about it, my trigger was probably even more meaningless than yours, but you need to remember that no one’s trigger is meaningless, nor to discredit what you’re feeling, because if you do that, you’re only heading one way on the spiral of shit.  Once you get over that humiliation, everything becomes so much easier.”</p><p>“I don’t know how that’s ever going to happen.  I can’t look at him for longer than five minutes, and if I do, I only end up sobbing like two hours later about all the emotions that I associate with him.”</p><p>“You can talk to me about it anytime.  Just text me.”</p><p>His gaze has wandered from Jonas, head coming to rest on his upturned palm as he forced out more truth than he’s uttered in weeks, so he doesn’t see it coming when the older man pulls him towards his chest, stiffening when he’s enveloped in his scent.  Slowly, as if he fears he might break if he moves too quickly, he raises his arms, wraps them around Jonas’ middle, and just sits there.</p><p>“Thank you,” he breathes into his shoulder, unsure if Jonas can even hear him from the way his face is buried in the older man’s clothes, but he doesn’t care.  The intent is there.  “Thank you for not giving up on me.”</p><p>“I couldn’t, not when I see so much of myself in you.”</p><p>When they pull away, Kai has to squeeze his eyes shut to fight the sudden tears, scoffing at the little laugh Jonas huffs out,</p><p>“I don’t want to play tomorrow.”</p><p>“I don’t think that would be the best idea,” Jonas nods, “I’ve been pretending I don’t smell vomit.”</p><p>“Sorry,” he cringes, “I was too exhausted to clean it.”</p><p>“Don’t worry about it.  I’ll speak to the coaches that you’re not well and shouldn’t play tomorrow.  You just stay here.”</p><p>“Thanks,” he says, feeling inherently guilty when the other man goes into the bathroom and begins running the water, Kai hearing the unmistakable sound of cloth on porcelain moments later.  If he didn’t feel so reassured and his body is hell-bent on keeping that feeling for as long as it can, he’d feel so useless.  His repeated thanks sound so loud in the quiet room when Jonas emerges, water stains on the sleeves of his jacket.</p><p>“Don’t worry about it.  Take care,” he’s gone before Kai can say anything else, briefly aware that there was a lot promised that wasn’t discussed; and for the first time, he’s almost disappointed.  There was something about Jonas, the infallible kindness Kai felt he’d alienated himself ever from being gifted again, that allowed Kai to succumb to the waves of truth and not feel shit about doing it.</p><p>Jonas must have gone straight to the staff, because Kai’s barely shifted before there’s the scrape of his door being pushed open.  He couldn’t hear his footsteps, so he almost feels as if he’s been caught playing truant from school or something when he enters his room, the general key card Manu’s threatened to gain access to on many occasions obvious in the member of the medical team’s hands.</p><p>The moment when he notices the residual smell is obvious, because his nose crinkles violently.</p><p>“Do you think it was something you ate?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” he lies, “I’m not going to be well enough to play tomorrow, though.”</p><p>“Absolutely not, I will go to Joachim and tell him.  We fly back two days from now, if you’re still not well, we will legally sedate you and carry you back to Germany,” the guy, who’s name Kai doesn’t have a clue of, tries to joke, but he’s the type with such an intimidating, deep voice it sounds much more like a threat.  “You won’t be coming to the stadium tomorrow afternoon either.  If it’s contagious, we can’t have it spread to the rest of the team.  We will be watching Hector closely.”</p><p>“Okay,” he croaks out, unable to look the man in the eyes when there’s a sudden painful swoop in his stomach, a visceral reminder that he’s breaking the promise he made to Jan. “Anything else?”</p><p>“Not apart from the fact that no one will come to visit you tomorrow unless you specifically call for them.  That includes the rest of the team,” the doctor says, leaving a packet of something that looks like tablets on Kai’s bedside table and doesn’t even turn around to say goodbye.</p><p>The doctor might share Kai’s levels of social ineptitude, or maybe Kai really is sick, because he slams the door and instantly, the room revolves in that slow, disorientating wobble, and Kai’s forced to scramble to the bathroom, barely managing to keep down his next round of vomit with his hand pressed against his mouth.  Keeling over the porcelain just rushes the blood to his head, sends his sentience off the face of the fucking earth and he doesn’t come to until he finds himself spread on the bathroom floor, only a little surprised not to see disgusting clumps of sick surrounding him.</p><p>Cleaning up feels like laborious, torturous humiliation.</p><p>Recently, whenever he’s been tired, sleep had evaded him in the cruellest of manners.  But tonight, maybe something about the fact he’s got nothing left in him means that the second he falls underneath the sheets, burying his face in the covers to block his sense from the smell of whatever remains of his insides ejecting themselves out of his body, he’s out like a light.</p><p>• • • • • •</p><p>From the interrupted year he’s spent in their company, he’s definitely doubtful of the truth in the doctor’s statement that the rest of the team won’t be disturbing him, because almost all of them seemed to be innately programmed with the insufferably annoying gene, which is why he’s pleasantly surprised when he wakes properly at three in the afternoon without so much as a knock on his door.  He’d been drifting in somewhere in the middle of consciousness and sleep for the best part of two hours when his body finally decides its had enough of slumber and stumbles into sentience.</p><p>There’s a bleary, warm hangover from the previous evening, delighted to find the comfort he took from Jonas’ words hasn’t deserted it, but the moment he considers it, he can feel it begin to wane.</p><p>He can’t listen to the voices in his head.  Throwing off the covers and stamping his feet on the soft, carpeted floor does not seem to deter them.  To make it worse, there’s a rotten taste in his mouth, the residue of yesterday’s panic something solid that he can’t swallow down, gruesome to the point he almost chokes on his toothbrush with the vigour he shoves it down his throat.</p><p>He wonders if the rest of the team have left for the stadium yet, he kind of remembers Manu barking instructions to them on one of the bus journeys that he thinks was of them leaving around this sort of time of day.  The silence rushing in from outside, amplified by the acoustics of the bathroom, inform him that they probably have.</p><p>The water from the shower sizzles on his skin, painting the flesh pink as he tries to wash the smell of guilt from his pores.  As he looks down his body, runs a hand down the curves of his stomach muscles, he’s somewhat taken aback at the disparity between the outside of him, which doesn’t have so much as a tiny scar in terms of fresh wounds, merely some silvery welt from a various childhood misadventure that his fingers trace fondly.  It seems so innocent, so unaware of danger compared to the inside of him, with his heart more scarred than clear, mind tainted with more poisons than he has the bravery to count.</p><p>When his spidering hands reach his inner thighs, he’s half-tempted to grip his cock, stroke along it until it’s hard just to mute the recollections.  Relief is so rare to him these days, because most of the time he can’t stop himself from thinking about how used he got to barely ever having to touch himself, because Julian always did it for him.  It’s agony trying to indulge in fantasies without suffering stabs to the heart.</p><p>Against his better judgement, he runs a hand along the shaft anyway.  His dick responds to the touch, but his blood doesn’t flame like it used to.  Masturbating feels more like a chore, a necessity, getting it out of him rather than ever experiencing the secret rushes his former best friend would elicit, even when he bit his lip, so Julian never knew.</p><p>His knees don’t go weak anymore, he’s completely in control, he doesn’t divulge into fantasies which would feel like things he knows all too well.  The only thing he can do is try not to think about anything that isn’t the rhythmic slide of his hand on his cock.  Sensations wrack through him in an indistinct manner, his back presses against the tiles of the wall to support him, rather than because he’s entered some sort of blissful, feeble state.  He’s not sure how long he attempts to lose himself, but the waves don’t even reach the shore, so eventually, no less relieved than before, he gives up and turns the water off, shivering involuntarily as the cold air hits his body.</p><p>Unlocking his phone triggers a cascade of messages to come in, most of them well-wishes on various group chats, pointed texts from Jan that he hides from his notifications bar and resolves to pretend that he didn’t see, opening the first game his thumb clicks on and playing it, slumped against the pillows of the bed, watching as the little caricature dies over and over again.  He doesn’t watch time tick by, if it wasn’t for the movement of the sun down past the skyline outside his window that darkens his room (his body feels pinned down by lead as he stands up to switch the lights on) he wouldn’t even be aware it’s any later at all.  Only when he notices the orange glow does he realise it’s even nightfall, and that the match has started.</p><p>He can’t read the language, so it takes lazy searching of the Estonian word for Germany until he can find the channel that’s even broadcasting the game.  He’s slightly relieved at his own linguistic inability, because at least he isn’t going to understand anything they say about him.</p><p>As if he’s cursed, the person the camera’s focusing on is Julian.  It’s a little over ten minutes in, Germany have a corner which Marcel swings in, and it floats tantalisingly close to Emre’s advancing head.  Kai blinks, almost succumbing to drowsiness he hadn’t noticed before, and it takes a moment to focus on the centre back who is now tearing down the field, and the instant he brings down the onrushing striker, Kai winces.  He’s seen enough of those to know what the outcome will be.</p><p>Manu looks almost comically furious.  Kai doesn’t need to know Estonian to hear the glee in the commentators’ voices.</p><p>For the rest of the first half, it’s such a boring mess of misplaced passes Kai ends up spending more time scrolling through social media than paying attention.  He’s pretty sure he can imagine what rehearsed, uninspired drivel Lӧw must be spouting at his teammates in the stadium not five miles away and isn’t surprised when his phone buzzes with a text halfway through.</p><p><strong>Leon: </strong>you watching?</p><p><strong>Kai: </strong>yeah</p><p><strong>Kai: </strong>you’re all shit huh</p><p><strong>Leon: </strong>charming</p><p><strong>Leon: </strong>and here i was thinking you’d be all supportive</p><p><strong>Kai: </strong>joking you little bitch</p><p><strong>Kai: </strong>i’m sure you’ll win</p><p><strong>Leon: </strong>thanks</p><p><strong>Leon: </strong>get well soon, got to go</p><p>It’s a little weird to put his phone on the mattress, look up and see the guy he was just texting emerge from the tunnel, but it doesn’t capture his attention for long.  His eyes drag to Julian automatically, running his hands through his hair because they both have a terrible habit of doing that, subconsciously biting his lip and making Kai want nothing more than to be by his side.</p><p>Except that if he was, he’d want to be as far from the older man as possible.</p><p>If he could make up his mind, honesty would be so much easier.  If he could make up his mind, he wouldn’t be sitting in a hotel room bed with the sheets messed up around his ankles and turning down what he once dreamed of just like he promised Jan he wouldn’t do.  He’d be out there, intercepting the ball, getting another goal, just like he did not even five days ago.</p><p>Julian opens the second half.  From the second Germany tread forward, it’s evident Luca and Julian haven’t clicked as a partnership, Kai’s nerves twitching every time his former best friend tries a pass that Luca doesn’t read properly, because he just knows if he was out there, the ball’s trajectory would just be second nature.  Even when they weren’t speaking, they could find that inner connection wordlessly, and now that Julian thinks they’re on good terms, he wonders whether it would be even better.</p><p>The bitterness that infiltrates his mind is so strong he almost passes out.  It’s only the rising noise coming through the speakers that alerts him to the fact that Marco’s backheeled the ball to Ilkay, the midfielder has taken a shot, and it’s deflected beyond the keeper.</p><p>They’re ahead, and Kai only knows he’s truly sad because he doesn’t feel any joy.</p><p>
  <em>“What the hell are you doing, Kai?” Jan yells, “you’re blocking the TV!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“We scored! Ӧzil is the best in the world!” Kai responds, all vigorous and happy, jumping around the living room, not caring about his brother’s whines.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“It’s a friendly, you idiot, calm down.  It doesn’t mean anything.” His brother snaps, grabbing his shoulders and forcefully shoving him back down onto the sofa.  “Now shut up and watch the match.”</em>
</p><p>Once Jan had reached his teen years, he’d become this grumpy, snarky shell of the kid who used to spend hours playing football against Kai in the garden.  He’d been upset back then, since Jan would reject him in favour of going out with girls or down to the local mugger.  Now, he gets it.  It doesn’t stop him from being forlorn, another moment of realising just how crazy things have gone since those conversations made up his life.</p><p>He misses Ilkay’s second goal in his contemplation.  The game isn’t even background noise to him, he can’t watch a match where his team are 2-0 up with ten men and he should be out there, because it just feels like they don’t need him.  He’d spent so long trying to dispel the myths, but all they’re doing is proving he was right all along.  He isn’t an addition to his country, he’s something surplus to requirements, someone who doesn’t need them to destroy his dreams, because he’s done it already himself.</p><p>He cries himself to sleep for the rest of the match, somehow timing his wake up perfectly with the handshakes and sends the appropriate congratulatory texts with obvious sadness.  He doesn’t care if they guess, if they’re concerned, whatever shit they want to try and pull on him now they know he’s got physical sentience.  The time bomb that he’s become ticks loudly, he knows it’s coming, it’s the most glaring foreshadow he could possibly ever bare witness to, and when the text comes through, it seems like stupid fucking fate.  He hasn’t been with it all day, but now he doesn’t have a choice.  Not when Julian wants him.</p><p><strong>Julian: </strong>hey how are you feeling?</p><p>He doesn’t want to speak to Julian, so he sends the most monosyllabic response he can think of.  His former best friend must have been lurking on their chat, because the <em>Read </em>icon pops up instantly, but for a while, Julian doesn’t say anything.  Kai’s almost fallen asleep by the time his phone buzzes again.  </p><p><strong>Julian: </strong>I need to speak to you, now.</p><p><strong>Julian: </strong>Come to my room.  I’ll be waiting outside the door.</p><p>In a moment, his mood switches from blatant acceptance to something else; something he wasn't expecting but evokes the deepest, wildest fear, heart thudding violently the moment he clocks the capitalisation.  Throughout all their friendship, the only time Julian ever used it was when he was mad with Kai (anger which always dissipated within minutes because they’d fall back on whoever’s bed was closest and have some sort of sex), but there’s something that resonates through the text that just screams that Julian’s serious.</p><p>His eyes survey the corridor for signs of anyone patrolling, but it’s late enough that they’re all holed up in their own rooms.  The sudden onset of terror has rendered him a little shaky, so it takes him an embarrassingly long amount of time to spot Julian, leaning against his doorframe six rooms down, arms folded, eyebrow raised in such a familiar way Kai has to bite his tongue to stop himself from making a sex joke.</p><p>With every inch he gets closer to his former best friend, the heat of the firepit he’s stepped into increases beyond belief.  His skin is blistering with angry gashes from the laser tracks of Julian’s gaze following him.</p><p>“Hi---,” he starts to say, but he’s cut off,</p><p>“Get in.”</p><p>He knows Julian well enough to have witnessed him in the throes of rage, but six months ago he never could’ve fathomed that the tone would one day be aimed at him.  He’s vaguely aware that his hands have been shaking since the messages came in, clasping them in one another to try and conceal the evidence, but it’s pointless.  His entire body, right down to his knees, is shaking like a fucking leaf.</p><p>When they used to be alone together, it was always silent, but it was never quiet.  There were too many thoughts racing round both their heads, so many unvoiced sentiments he now knows he wasn’t the only one deliberating over, all of it filled the acres of space that separated their almost intertwined bodies.  The difference is tangible, he thinks bluntly, to the actual silence that’s fallen upon the room now the door is shut, and they’re cut off from the world.  Most gut-wrenchingly of all, is that Kai doesn’t need anyone else to have his world, his existence could be defined in the man standing in front of him, but once he finds the strength to take in the vexation set in Julian’s jaw, such a world is hurtling through the galaxies, seconds away from exploding in a ball of flame.</p><p>Mentally, he’s counting down the seconds until Julian speaks, but his guesses keep being wrong.  They stand there, in an unmoving freezeframe of rage, winds crashing around them and sweeping them in a tornado, colliding with trees and dragging debris across lives, all while rooting them to the floor of the room.</p><p>Gusts of malevolence attack him, stun him, and if he listens hard enough, he can make them out.  Julian’s their epicentre, he’s throwing them out to force Kai away from him, and all Kai can think is what if this is the impression he gives out?</p><p>If it is, there’s no way he’s ever being forgiven, because he’s been caught in this for a matter of minutes and he’s already dying.  Between the burns, the violence of the winds, he’s being slowly killed, but nothing is as harsh a weapon as the fact all he can think is how much he fucking <em>loves him</em>.  If anything, more than he did when he left.  He’d spent so long trying to hate what’s really, for him, impossible to feel anything but love for.</p><p>It’s not fair of him to open the conversation, but he’s a little worried Julian’s anger might have actually malformed him to stone.  His voice is three octaves higher than normal when he croaks out,</p><p>“What did you call me here for?”</p><p>His answer isn’t verbal.  Something in his voice reverts Julian to human form, some semblance of life flickers in his eyes and a hand has come up to run through the hair Kai is aching to touch, but he hasn’t been further from intimacy with Julian since the day they tumbled into bed together for the first time.</p><p>“We’re not having sex, if that’s what you think.”</p><p>Kai only realises his eyeline had dropped from Julian’s face when he moves to look at him again so quickly that he gets whiplash.  Julian didn’t even sound like himself, voice imbued with a gravelly tone that sounds nothing like even the voice he has when he was aroused, which is the closest Kai has seen him to being out of control.</p><p>“I---, I didn’t mean that,” he stammers, so incoherent he gives up and just waits for Julian to move around him.  A wisp of warmth, beautiful, emanates from his skin now he’s so close to Kai, runs over Kai’s body and he can’t hide the involuntary shiver.  The second it’s over, he regrets it, because Julian doesn’t huff a laugh like he used to.  The reflex only seems to make him madder.</p><p>“What did you mean?”</p><p>“I---,” he stutters again, because Julian is behind him now, warm breath reverberating over the curve of Kai’s neck, and he must be doing this to elicit some sort of particular response because Kai is absolutely fucking frozen.  He’s everything, embodies every antithesis, fucked up and indecipherable and it’s no surprise he’s ended up here tonight.  They couldn’t have tried to rekindle a friendship without this happening, because Kai’s placed too much baggage between them, and Julian’s given up trying to climb over it.  That’s why he’s here, they both know it, and still he’s stupid enough to ask.  “You told me you needed to speak to me?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Julian says, “I had this whole speech planned out and I’ve forgotten it all.  It was very eloquent, as well, put everything I’m feeling into words.”</p><p>“Maybe it’d be better to say this spontaneously,” he tries, nervous, “it might feel more real that way.”</p><p>Julian moves away, and that’s all Kai needs to know he’s already said something wrong, because the lovely heat is gone.  It’s replaced by a very real wind, one that stabs goose bumps over the length of his skin, and when he finally manages to co-ordinate his limbs, he turns to see Julian on the balcony, staring out into where the city should be, but it’s replaced by a layer of thick, dark fog.  The lack of light renders him a silhouette, mysterious and sinuous and every inch the epitome of perfection.</p><p>At least, like this, he can’t make out the hate etched on Julian’s face.</p><p>“I’m sorry you didn’t get to see the city with Leon and Serge yesterday.”</p><p>“You should be,” Julian says, ditching the personable shit he’d kept up since they started speaking in those hushed, weighted tones, “I gave up that time coming to your hotel room and trying to help you.”</p><p>“I know you did, and I’m so grateful---,”</p><p>“Leave it.  No, you’re not grateful, because if you were, you would’ve at least tried to accept my offers of help, instead of running away from me and sobbing in your bathroom every time you see my face.”</p><p>Julian’s stalked inside now, almost closing the French windows on the curtains in his haste to approach Kai, walking so close Kai’s braced for the punch that never comes.  He doesn’t know whether or not to thank God for it.</p><p>“That doesn’t mean anything, I was just sick yesterday--,”</p><p>“Yesterday wasn’t the only time it’s happened though, was it?” Julian retorts, and it’s the first time the emotion presented on his face is conveyed in his tone.  Kai’s shoulders bristle instinctively.  If Julian’s looking for a fight, he’s sure as hell going to get one.  “Even after we had sex on your birthday you practically kicked me out of your room!”</p><p>“Did it ever occur to you that I might have just wanted to be alone?!”</p><p>“Of course, it fucking occurred to me, you idiot,” there’s no gentle mockery in Julian’s tone now, not like every other time he’s chucked that insult in Kai’s direction, “I did nothing but think about it!”</p><p>“Then what about it is so hard for you to accept?” The only thing keeping him going is the fact his voice is somehow more level than Julian’s, the older man has lost the façade of peace before he has, and it’s deliciously horrible of him to be self-congratulatory about that, when Julian has every right in the world to punch his lights out.</p><p>“Nothing!” Julian exclaims, voice verging on the cusp of a shout.  Something in it makes Kai ridiculously brave, to the point where he’s hurtling towards incomprehensible stupidity, but his brain has resigned and his mouth is working of its own accord,</p><p>“Be quiet, there, Julian,” he smirks, knowing he’s just provoking at this point.  For all of Julian’s stunning dominance earlier, he’s grasped the reins now, and god they’re in for a hell ride.  “You don’t want Manu coming down to tell us off now, do you?”</p><p>“The walls are thick,” Julian says through gritted teeth, “stop using your fucking defence mechanisms, Kai, or we’re not going to get anywhere with this.”</p><p>“Who says I wanted to talk about this in the first place?”</p><p>“No one.  But this is the last night of break, and I can’t fucking do this anymore.”</p><p>Julian doesn’t touch him, but as Kai falls back onto the bed, feet shuffling as they try to find some grip on the floor.  He feels like an ant, and Julian’s about to crush him with all his might. </p><p>The call-out stunned him, the vocalisation of Kai’s methods way too rehearsed to be something Julian’s had an epiphany about since Kai arrived.  Right there, Kai feels the dissection Julian’s done on him with a million other people, how with every scalpel, he’s getting closer to the heartstrings that force his secrets together.  They’re going to be snapped, and Kai is going to drown in the blood loss.</p><p>“I’m not going to be able to stop you, am I?”</p><p>“If you dare even fucking try,” the flame-laced anger has left Julian’s voice since Kai assumed his position of physical inferiority, and the hollow remains allow for the exhaustion to seep in.  “Fucking hell, I’ve waited so long and now I can’t even think of where to begin.”</p><p>“How about you try and criticise me for all my flaws?  That’s all anyone else seems to do these days.”</p><p>“No one’s doing that, Kai, and it pisses us all off that you think we are!  There isn’t a person in this team, or in your team, or even in my fucking team, who doesn’t give a shit about how you’re doing?  You’ve got the whole league worried about you, but no one seems to be good enough to be able to speak to you!”</p><p>“I spoke to Jonas yesterday---,” he tries to say, but he knows immediately that Julian isn’t having any of it.</p><p>“That’s true, and he did say he got more out of you than we do normally, but even then, you only gave him scraps to try and interpret!”</p><p>“He’s not my fucking therapist, I have someone who’s job it is to do that for me, I literally told you that yesterday, so I don’t see why you’re getting annoyed that I’m not opening up to someone who betrayed me!”</p><p>In a second, their conversation isn’t about Jonas anymore.  It’s back to the two of them being the only two people in the world, staring at each other because it’s the kind of situation where they could never not.  Kai’s mind could go off on a tangent considering how beautiful Julian is, like it always does, but he’s trodden those waters so much, they’re murky with the oil of his boat.</p><p>The fuel’s leaking, painting the river black as far as he can see, as the vessel slips underneath the surface.</p><p>“You can’t still be on about this,” Julian mutters, sounding torn between furious and conflicted.  “I left in May, Kai, I would’ve thought you were used to it by now.  You seemed like you were getting there on the last break.”</p><p>With the last of his strength from his cursed voyage, he reaches an arm.  With a match, handed to him by Julian and the look in his eyes, he finds the real detonator.  The others, the ones he had felt fizzle down in him so many times since he realised its presence, had all been fake.  But this time, the vibrations are different, more guttural, and he barely has time to squeeze his eyes shut and pray before the flame hits the bomb.</p><p>“Maybe I lied.  Maybe I’m worse than I was back then, or worse than I was back in May, because I can’t seem to be able to fucking help myself.  If you think it’s bad for you, being forced to sit through another meeting where you bitch about my latest episode, then how about you try my side of this shitty bargain someone’s negotiated for us?  The side where I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to make it through the day without having a panic attack or whatever you want to call it, or if I’m going to wince every time I have to do something like wash my hands from the amount of cuts on them, or if I’m going to come to feeling like a failure from all the pity in people’s faces when they look at me?!”</p><p>All this time, Kai’s known he knew what he was feeling, even when he could tell everyone else was half-tempted to drag him to an asylum.  He just didn’t <em>want </em>to feel it, tried to block it out, repress it, maybe if he did it long enough it would’ve disappeared.  Yet, right there, with the bomb exploding and forming a crater in the depths of his own heart, he’s pretty sure he’s never been as honest in his whole life.</p><p>“You never lied to me,” Julian murmurs, and Kai wants to scream how wrong he is.  Every single night they lay beside each other was a lie, and it’s fucking nonsensical how Julian can’t see that.  “Fuck, Kai, why did you start now?”</p><p>“I didn’t just start now--,” is all he can muster.  All he can do is wish Julian would catch his drift, that he would ditch this argument they’re trying to have and try and pull each other to the shore, or maybe, if they’re destined to sink, their last action can be to hold each other, but Julian’s response is all he needs to know that’s never going to happen,</p><p>“No, you didn’t.  You made that whole lie up about how you found someone else just so you could block me.”</p><p>“Is this what you wanted to berate me for when you turned up at my flat?”</p><p>Julian’s as much of a coward as him.  He waits until Kai’s left reeling, and then strikes.  Kai could punch him with no remorse.</p><p>“I didn’t want to berate you then, but fucking hell I want to now, Kai.  I should feel bad, because I know how hard it must have been for you to admit all that shit just now, but you’ve caused me all this pain, so I need to stop worrying about what you might think.”</p><p>“Just do it, Julian.  You know you want to.”</p><p>“I--,” Julian pauses, looking for all the world sixteen years old for some inexplicable reason.  “You know transfers happen, and we’ve been over how I wanted to tell you so many times I don’t think I can put myself through chewing the fat again, but I still don’t think even that deserved how you’ve treated me.  I have tried to rectify this, and I don’t understand why you won’t just let me.”</p><p>“You don’t get to decide whether or not I forgive you, Julian.”</p><p>“No, that’s true.  But you also don’t get to decide whether or not I forgive you, because contrary to your beliefs, I am not the only guilty one here.”</p><p>Julian doesn’t need to say anything else; he’s told Kai everything he could possibly need to know by now, revealed to Kai just exactly how he’s come across.  Momentarily, he’s mad at himself for perpetrating this, but there’s something in Julian’s voice that belies how much Kai’s hurt him, and then he’s trapped between screaming how necessary it was and falling to his knees and grovelling for forgiveness. </p><p>It takes several seconds before he can keep himself from doing either,</p><p>“I have never said you’re the only guilty one, stop putting fucking words in my mouth.”</p><p>“You didn’t need to say it, Kai.  Your actions since I left have told me enough.”</p><p>He can’t keep himself from blurting it out, even though he’ll never be prepared to hear the answer.  Judging by the look on Julian’s face once the words are out there, settling in the space between them which has suddenly become tiny.  Kai’s boxed in, the oxygen in the air is running out fast, his body has forgotten how to function when Julian’s right there, so close his hands could run along the crevice of the older man’s cheek.</p><p>“What actions?”</p><p>“Fucking hell,” his former best friend breathes eventually, as strained as Kai’s finding it, “I’m not even sure if I could tell you.”</p><p>“Why not?”</p><p>“I don’t think I could bring myself to think about it honestly,” Julian says, moving to sit next to Kai on the bed, but it’s not romantic, suggestive, emotional, or anything that Kai wants to tell himself.  It’s clear he’s only doing it because he’s scared, he might pass out if he tries to stay upright anymore, another one of those agonisingly sharp reminders that Kai isn’t the only one suffering the never-ending tidal waves hurtling down the river towards them.  “There’s been so many, I just, I can’t--,”</p><p>“You can’t criticise me and say that I’m just as guilty as you and then not give me any reasons as to why.”</p><p>“That’s not fair of you to say.”</p><p>“No, it probably isn’t, but it’s the truth and we both know it.” His voice has reverted to freakishly calm, void of anything that isn’t brutal, hard tones just to emphasise the snarl in his words.  He wants Julian to feel it, consider it, wants it to knock him hollow and raw.  But what he doesn’t want is the way Julian is <em>staring </em>at him, caught somewhere between exasperation and wonder.  “This whole conversation is about us finally being honest with each other, or at least that’s what I’m getting from it, so I think it’s your turn to tell me what you’ve been thinking.”</p><p>From the intense, fiery anger, the smoke that infiltrated their lungs and choked them, they’ve emerged in the ashes, residue of the destruction still flickering on the floor, threatening to set alight again with one wrong word.  All that, and Julian still braves speaking,</p><p>“I---,” the aborted sentences that shape every interaction just send shivers over Kai’s spine, “you used to be so self-conscious about everything you did, it just doesn’t make sense that you could go from that to this.”</p><p>“To what?” He shoots back, even though he knows precisely what Julian’s going to retaliate with.</p><p>“To being so merciless,” Julian spits it out, like Kai’s poison spread across his tongue. “It started with all the mixed signals I’ve already told you about, the lies, all of that shit.  But then there were the times when you would work me into this sense of believing everything was okay again, and then when I tried to find you, you would just vanish again.  God knows I shouldn’t be putting this much effort into someone who treats me like that.”</p><p>“I’ve never owed you anything.”</p><p>“You owe me enough respect to acknowledge my efforts.”</p><p>“I’m here now, aren’t I?”</p><p>“You are,” Julian says, voice rife with annoyance and it’s the last piece of evidence Kai needed to accept that they’ve flared those flames again, they’re tearing down the woodland surrounding them, licking towards the receding river they’re standing in, Kai’s burn marks reopening from the heat.  “One occasion out of the million fucking tries I’ve had!”</p><p>“I didn’t want to acknowledge your efforts, because you hurt me so badly--,” he begins, but then he feels the blood running down his chin.  It isn’t real, but it might as well be, the gashes the barbed-wire noose cut into his throat are opened, he cannot fucking breathe, he’s going to die, there’s no way he can survive Julian doing this to him.  It’s only then does he vaguely realise he’s crying, probably has been for the last fifteen minutes, cheeks tough with the tracks of tears still staining them.  His throat is dry, scrabbly, and any words lingering on his lips are long dead.</p><p>“Yeah, you keep going on about how much I hurt you and refusing to take responsibility for yourself---,”</p><p>“IT’S NOT LIKE THAT!”</p><p>It’s almost a miracle he gets it out.  The anger must take Julian aback for the briefest amount of time, but what it also does is shatter some sort of glass wall that Kai didn’t even realise was up between them.  With a judder, a silent smash, Julian comes into focus, all the clarity in the world just amplifying his beauty, and for the first time, Kai doesn’t find the idea of kissing him unfathomable.</p><p>
  <em>They’d kissed one time before, in a hotel room in Munich.  If he had to be honest, Kai would be forced to admit that he technically initiated it, because he was the one who moved his hands to the crook of Julian’s neck, carding his fingers in that gorgeous mop of blonde hair, shutting his eyes tight and hoping to God Julian wouldn’t punch him.  He still remembers the taste of Julian against him, the slight hint of salt, how soft his best friend’s lips felt pressed against his own.  Back then, it’d seemed like the edge to an abyss of possibility, but he had never dared to hurtle into the blackness, only because if Julian didn’t jump with him, he would’ve died.</em>
</p><p>“Prove it,” Julian challenges, so quiet and such the polar opposite to Kai’s burning death he almost misses it.</p><p>“I know I’ve been so out of line; I’m begging you to believe me when I tell you that,” he chokes, “but like you said earlier, I was only doing it to protect myself.”</p><p>“What did you need to protect yourself from?”</p><p>“You,” he answers, before he knows how the fuck he’s going to be able to finish that sentence.  None of it passes through his mind, it just falls out of his mouth in an incomprehensible mess of truth.  “You don’t know how many weapons you have that kill me, Julian, and I didn’t know myself until you left.  You always protected me from them, and then suddenly I was in your firing line.”</p><p>In some horrific way, it’s the best thing he’s said all evening.  He can already see the protests forming, the abhorrence reflected in his former best friend’s expression, such a dreary sense moving into him from where their shoulders started brushing together at some point, he must have been off in his own mind when it happened.  It’s so despicable of him to admit something as offering as that, when he knows what he’s going to say next is going to break Julian.</p><p>“That’s not everything, though.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“A few weeks ago, Noah and I had a conversation.”</p><p>For a second, Julian’s face is completely blank, and Kai <em>sees </em>the moment the realisation sets in, <em>sees </em>the hurt flush through the older man’s eyes, and there’s the petrifying feeling of adrenaline surging through him because Julian looks <em>fucking furious.</em></p><p>Weirdly enough, though, his voice sounds infallibly level.</p><p>“What did he say?”</p><p>“He tried to get me to let him contact you.  He kept saying that he was your rightful boyfriend, and I should give back what’s his, and I told him that I know what he did and that you would rather die than hear from him again---,”</p><p>“Thank you.  Just, please, god, don’t talk about him anymore.”</p><p>They’re back to silence.  There isn’t anything else he could ever say, so he just stands up.</p><p>Julian lets him, and that’s all Kai needs to know Julian finally understands him.  His hand is just sliding onto the doorknob when the older man’s voice stops him,</p><p>“Kai.”</p><p>Julian looks something like destroyed when Kai looks back.  Hell has claimed him, hell Kai has unleashed over him, yet somehow, it doesn’t feel like Noah bares down between them, multiplies that hell, but even so, Kai could never leave him in the pools of destruction and has climbed in there with him.  Even so, he knows that really, they’re getting through it together, in some stupid way.  That’s what they’ve always been doing, that’s what they’ve always done.  That’s who they <em>are.</em>  Kai and Julian and an incredible mess of pain and each other.</p><p>Julian’s voice is barely there, but it doesn’t need to be.  Not when everything’s in his eyes,</p><p>“Why are you doing this to me?”</p><p><em>Because I’m in love with you.  </em>It’d be so easy to say it, but he can’t get it out.  He’s going to die and Julian’s never going to know how he feels, and he’s got to accept it now, because he doesn’t have a fucking choice.  The door clicks open behind him, he’s got to get out of there, he can only choke out three words before the whole thing stops.  The tears are still running down his cheeks.</p><p>His voice is shattered.</p><p>
  <em>“Think about it.”</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong><em>leverkusen, germany (three weeks later) </em> </strong>
</p><p>“What the fuck?!” Lars exclaims from where he’s spread against a slanted gaming chair in the middle of the room.  Various other members of the team are dotted around, all of their eyes transfixed somewhere between Lotta and the television screen, expressions ranging from surprise to delight to anger (especially from Mitch, who managed to lose three consecutive games of FIFA to the media team member).  “I think we’re going to have to ban you from game night, Lotta!”</p><p>“Why?” She smiles sweetly, but there’s a distinct mocking tone laced in her voice, “too scared about being beaten by a girl again?”</p><p>“No, definitely not,” the captain stammers, looking definitely flustered, clinging on to an act of superiority that is waning by the second.  Over four different video games and almost broken controllers, Lotta has won against every single member of the team multiple times, probably causing irrevocable damage to some of Lars’ gaming controllers.  She even beat even Sven comfortably, who everyone thought was a secret god at Mario Kart, which inevitably lead to teasing Kai isn’t sure has even started to die down yet.  “Just, how the hell did you do that?”</p><p>“You forget I’m not a professional footballer, I didn’t have to spend all my childhood out on the pitch training.  Still, it was worth it for this afternoon, thank you, Lars,” she says, standing up with an air of finality and offering her hands to Kai and Mitch.  “The three of us need to be off now, we’re supposed to be meeting Sophia in a café in twenty minutes.”</p><p>By now, if it wasn’t for the women in his life, Kai’s sure he would be dead.  They ferry him around, between the two of them, making sure he’s in the right place at the right time and take care of him.  He’d give anything to know what they must have talked about while he was away on international break.</p><p>“Give my love to Sophia!” Paulinho says in accented English as Kai heads towards the door.  Ever since Mitch outed Kai, and the team did the subsequent maths that Kai was obviously not dating her, it has come to the surface that Kai’s Brazilian teammate has a crush on her, even though Kai’s pretty sure Sophia doesn’t even know he exists.  He doesn’t make a cutting comment, just flicks off the younger man and follows Mitch out of the door.</p><p>Lotta’s still got the smug smile plastered on her face that’s only amplified when Lars comes to see them out, making only half-joking comments about shoving her through the front door that elicits the appropriate protesting comments that ring in Kai’s ears.  A month or so ago, he might have cringed, let the grating noise annoy him, but ever since the pent-up hurt exploded with the time bomb in Julian’s hotel room in Tallinn three weeks ago, he’s been weirdly calm.  Almost like his old self.</p><p>That’s why, when the captain approached him after training in the morning, hesitantly asking if he wanted to join the gaming session, he’d accepted graciously, almost grinning at the unconcealed look of surprise on Lars’ face.  Initially, when he’d stepped into the older man’s living room for the first time in months (even though Julian and him used to be regulars there), he’d seen the same countenance painted on every other person, but with every laugh, every mocking comment he’d thrown into the melting pot of good-natured insults, the reservations had chipped away, until it felt like old times.</p><p>The only thing was he hadn’t sat where he used to, the little armchair he and Julian had always stuffed themselves onto together, Julian sometimes getting brave and running his hands through Kai’s curls in the dark of the room, unbeknownst to the others.  They used to go home and have so much sex after.  Kai just couldn’t face sitting there without him.</p><p>“Kai,” Lars says, prompting him to turn back just as he’s stepping out of the front door, “wait up.”</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“You look a lot better recently,” he smiles.  “We’re all so glad to have you back.”</p><p>“Thank you,” Kai’s smile could match the older man’s, and he really does mean it.  “I’m sorry I caused everyone so much stress.”</p><p>“You haven’t been the first, and god knows you won’t be the last,” the older man jokes, a little bit trapped between reassuring and exhausted.  “Don’t worry about it, kid.  We need you more than you realise.  Now go, I can’t stand to see that woman’s face any longer.” His voice raises, intended for Lotta, and Kai almost falls off the step laughing at her reaction.  “See you tomorrow.”</p><p>“See you, thanks for hosting,” he calls over his shoulder, stepping into the backseat of Lotta’s car and stifling another giggle at the openly hostile silence Mitch is maintaining.  Ever since the international break, he’s taken to walking to and from the training complex because at least it gives him the chance to clear his head, not watching the life on the streets go by as Lotta pulls out of Lars’ district and towards the city centre.  Part of him feels guilty for still keeping his captain in the dark about everything, somehow, he’s still been able to keep his therapy session attendance under wraps, but he just can’t seem to find the words to tell him. </p><p>He’d rather keep it a secret than evoke a panic attack trying to find a way to admit it.  He’s been, aside from one or two rocky moments, relatively okay since the argument.  He hasn’t told Hans all the details either, but in their last two sessions, he got further than shakily describing what happens.  There’s just a barrier, something that keeps him from telling him the real thing that sparked all of this.  Despite Lotta’s words on the way to his first appointment, he’s sure he just can’t admit he was in love with another man to a non-footballer.  Someone who doesn’t know the risks.</p><p>“What time’s your appointment today, Kai?” Mitch asks, snapping Kai back to the car and the lingering comedic tension between the other two.</p><p>“Four thirty.  We’ve got a couple of hours before we need to leave--,” he trails off, distracted by the ‘where are you?’ text that Sophia sends, smiling when he checks the time on the top of the screen, sees that it’s one minute after their agreed time.  She’s the kind of person to go into a state of alerting the police for a national emergency if Kai’s three minutes late to a meet up.</p><p>She’s shaking her head when the three of them enter the coffee shop not five minutes later, having claimed a table in a secluded corner of the room. </p><p>“You’re late,” she says to Kai while greeting the other two with hugs.</p><p>“Got held up at Lars’, sorry.  Let me get you a drink,” he offers, already turning to go to the counter because he knows exactly what her order is, only to find Lotta’s already there, twirling her hair in her fingers as she looks over the counter at one of the baristas.  It’s probably rude the way he tries not to gawk at her as she returns back to the table, four drinks on a tray, brushing off the three of them offering to pay her, but now she’s come out to him and that she recommended this café in the first place, he can’t help but begin to plot.</p><p>“So, why did you choose this café?” He asks her, nudging Sophia sharply when he feels her exasperated gaze.  It takes all of his strength not to dissolve into another laughing fit when Sophia almost chokes unflatteringly on her coffee.</p><p>“I’ve been here a couple of times, it’s a little bit out of the way so I hope you two are less likely to get spotted, and I like their coffee.”  She’s so infallible with her words, Kai knows if it was him, he’d turn into a blushing, obvious mess, but there’s a friendly warning glare in her eyes that forces him to swallow his drink a little bit too violently.  Mitch steps on his toe underneath the table.  “It’s been a while since the four of us have met up, hasn’t it?”</p><p>It’s verging on awkward when Mitch mutters an agreement, the four of them raising their mugs to their lips in embarrassing synchronicity just to evade the painful silence.  Kai knows what’s coming, he’s been mentally preparing himself for the conversation ever since he stepped out of bed in the morning, he’s just waiting for one of them to be brave enough to bring it up.  Lotta was away with the women’s team for a week after Kai returned from Tallinn, Sophia had an exam week last week so Kai’s barely seen her, her snapchat story filled with mounds of paper with disjointed and amalgamated notes in English and German, and Mitch has only been filled in with the major details.  The women who direct his life have called the meeting to discuss through the drama of what went down in Estonia.</p><p>“Do you want me to just begin?” He asks, tone only slightly laced with annoyance.  “I can see you’re all passing around who’s going to ask me to explain everything, so I might as well just start telling you.”</p><p>Relief mixed with guilt is a weird combination, he muses, as the precise mixture floods the girls’ faces.</p><p>“How much do you know?” He asks Mitch, just to force the time to pass.  It’s horrific, how he’s surrounded by people he has come to love but even with all the times he’s lost control and screamed how he wishes he could be alone, he’s never wanted them to simply vanish as much as he does right in that moment.  It feels wrong, discussing secrets that could send the media into meltdown if anyone from the barista Lotta was flirting with to the woman typing on her laptop on the next table overheard, in the middle of such a public place.  But he promised, and they’re expectant now.</p><p>“Just the general stuff, that you had a fight and you got sick and had to miss the Estonia game.  I don’t even know how it started.”</p><p>“He got seated next to me on the flight to Tallinn after the game in Dortmund,” Kai begins, realising belatedly he hasn’t gone through any of the little rituals he’s become reliant on when he retells stories in the same vein as this.  But it’s too late, he’s opened the can of worms now, and they’re starting to rear their ugly heads.  “And he kept doing all this shit to remind me that he knows me so fucking well, like, during take-off, he let me grip onto his own armrest even though he loves to sit with his arms on them,” it’s completely irrelevant, and Kai knows if he carries on with this intricacy they’ll be here long past closing time and he’ll have missed his session with Hans by hours, but at least it stops him from letting slip how much he wanted to kiss Julian or something else he’ll regret the second it passes his lips.   “We didn’t talk as much as I know you think we did on the plane, though.”</p><p>“No offence, Kai, but we don’t need to hear the odd details.  Was anything meaningful said on the flight?” Sophia asks.</p><p>“He made me unblock his number.”</p><p>“Have you still got it unblocked?”</p><p>Kai nods, thinking back to the last text messages on their thread, the ones where Julian’s tone changed within a minute.  He’d text an apology if it wasn’t for the fact that’s nowhere near acceptable for some of the things that he said that night.</p><p>If it wasn’t for the fact that the message might not go through, and he’d be left sitting there with his phone refusing to send the text, he might try.  Julian’s probably taken the pettiest and most deserved form of retribution.  Kai’s just not sure he could deal with the confirmation.</p><p>“We stayed up really late texting that night.”</p><p>“Did Neuer not patrol?” Mitch pipes up, looking a little surprised, “even back in the youth teams he was always a stickler for rules and bedtimes.”</p><p>“Normally he is, but he’s been distracted recently.  Ever since Thomas got dropped.  Plus, he seems to be more accommodating towards me anyway.  But then the next morning, I’m not sure what happened to me, I just felt really unwell and I snapped at him when he tried to sit next to me at breakfast, and then I went upstairs and threw up.”</p><p>He doesn’t feel like the rest of his recount is too long, but by the time he’s finished, his coffee is stone cold.  He tries to gloss over the fight because he can’t bear the look of exasperation on the girls’ faces, the fact that they’re practically telepathic these days. Mitch isn’t any better, because with every word Kai can see the chasm separating underneath him, Kai on one side, Julian on the other, pulling apart with some merciless tectonic activity and with every second he isn’t moving, falling into an irreversible situation just looks more and more likely.</p><p>“Fucking hell, what a mess,” Lotta breathes, “has Julian said anything to you, Mitch?”</p><p>“No.  Sam and I tried speaking to him when we played Fortnite together, but he just kind of skimmed over the topic.  He sounded really shaken when we even just said Kai’s name.”</p><p>“I don’t know how to make things right,” Kai admits, staring into the mug because it’s the only thing that won’t reflect inherent awkwardness.  “Like, I had so many chances when I went to see him, but we just ended up fighting instead.”</p><p>“From the sounds of it, that time wasn’t your fault, and there wouldn’t have been anything you could’ve possibly done to mollify him,” Sophia says, level-headed tone never cracking.  She’s so blatantly honest, it’s the most comforting thing he’s heard since the door fell shut behind him.  “But you did have so many other opportunities.  It’s pretty clear that if you’d just apologised on the flight, he was ready to forgive you in an instant.”</p><p>Kai’s trying to think of a response when they’re interrupted,</p><p>“Hello, sorry to bother you,” the barista Lotta was talking to earlier says, leaning over slightly and taking the empty mugs from the table, “can I get you anything else?”</p><p>“Another four coffees, please,” he responds, handing her fifteen Euros and telling her to keep the change.  She’s back within two minutes, taking extra care placing down Lotta’s drink and none of them miss the way the two of them smile at each other.</p><p>“Do you know her?”</p><p>“No,” Lotta blushes, dropping her voice even though the barista is long out of earshot, “but I’ve seen her before and she’s really cute.”</p><p>None of them want to state the obvious, so it’s another round of awkward smiling and sipping, pretending like they haven’t burned their tongues.  Really, Lotta’s confession has nothing to do with it, it’s merely an extension of Kai’s lack of acknowledgement to Sophia’s previous statement, but the longer he can ignore it and draw out the respite from interrogation, the easier he’ll hope it to be.</p><p>They stay quiet for so long Kai actually manages to zone out from the café, and the relief that floods him when it’s Mitch that causes his return to the building by scrabbling for his jacket and finishing his drink quickly, phone out and on in his hand.</p><p>“Sorry guys, it’s an emergency.  Sam needs me, I’ll see you at training tomorrow Kai, okay?”</p><p>“That’s okay, see you.”</p><p>“See you ladies,” his teammate says, bustling out of the front door of the café without even looking back.  Kai watches him go until he’s probably departed five minutes, only because he doesn’t want to turn back to their girls and their expectancy and another stupid physical manifestation of how reliant he’s become on them.</p><p>“Kai,” Sophia calls gently, placing a hand on his own.  It’s cold.</p><p>“Yes?”</p><p>“I don’t think it’s too late, you know.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“I honestly think that fight was necessary,” she says, softly, like she’s afraid he might bolt.  It’s pointless, she could have a meditator say it in some voice that just screams unnatural, and if it was going to trigger an attack, it would.  But he doesn’t run, he sits there, stares her down.  “He would’ve had a lot to say to you, and you to him, and you probably got more out then than you ever did fucking him all those nights.”</p><p>“I have to agree,” Lotta cuts in. “I’ve known him for years, and he forgave me even with what I did to him, just because we talked it out.  If he did feel something for you, which from the sounds of it, he really did, one fight won’t have changed that. If he felt anything for you that night, he still will now, and god knows he still will tomorrow.”</p><p>“You think he did?”</p><p>“I can’t say I know for sure,” Lotta says, “but given what I knew, I thought there was something going on between the two of you the best part of a year before I ever met you.  And fuck it, it’s clear you love him, you’ve told us that, and it’s clear you’re probably more in love now than you ever were.”</p><p>“How?”</p><p>“I guess that’s what love is,” Sophia smiles, a little sad.  “You could go through hell with them and afterwards, you’d still die for them at a moment’s notice.”</p><p>“Fuck,” he gets out.  “I guess I really do love him then--,”</p><p>“Hey, it’s Kai Havertz!” A voice cuts loudly across the hum of conversation, practically silencing the entire room save for the hiss of the coffee machine, and in an instant his anonymity is broken as the culprit advances towards him.  There’s just enough time for him to check his watch, it’s half an hour before his appointment with Hans is scheduled to start, and it’s at least a twenty-minute drive up there.  News of his presence has spread outside the café, because the door is held open and there’s what appears to be a ceaseless flood of people swarming in, making a beeline for him.  The three of them are surrounded seconds later.</p><p>He can’t make out what any one of them is saying, it’s an indecipherable storm that’s rushed into his mind and vaguely resembles what his thoughts sound like when he’s in the middle of a panic attack.  If he were to have one now, he’s not sure he’d be able to realise it was happening before it was too late, and fucking hell, what a headline that would be.</p><p>“This is your girlfriend?” He hears a man say, grabbing Sophia by the waist and Kai couldn’t give less of a shit if it’s going to cause a media uproar that he half-punches him.  The man’s protest is drowned out by someone else, the voice who initially alerted everyone to his presence, begging for an interview, a child clamouring for his signature, and he’s useless in the face of all these people, doing nothing more than clasping Sophia’s hand and turning to whisper in her ear,</p><p>“How the fuck am I meant to get out of this?  There’s no way I’m going to make it to---,” he cuts himself off, he can’t have someone overhear him, “you know.”</p><p>“I don’t know.”</p><p>To test the waters, he takes a step back, but the people just follow him.  He should stumble back into Lotta, but she isn’t there, he almost falls over the chair trying to evade the crowd inching ever closer, and fucking hell when he gets out of this, he’s going to scream at her for leaving him and Sophia in this mess.  Anger’s his presiding emotion until he spots her by the bar, in frantic conversation with the stressed barista, pointing at him and the barista’s gesturing at some closed door.</p><p>“KAI!” Someone screams right in front of his face, detracting him from the brief moment of solitude he had observing Lotta.  “CAN WE INTERVIEW YOU?”</p><p>“No---, please, um, please leave me alone,” he stutters, drowned out by all the people trying to hear him.  They need to get away from him before it’s too late, before he loses himself entirely, before Hans is forced to pick him out from a shell that’s been mauled at.  The anxiety doesn’t resemble the ball of tension that knotted in his stomach alongside the timebomb, the threatening burn that he hasn’t felt since he detonated, it’s more of a unrelenting wave of pain, but he can see the end of the tsunami, the calm waters that follow devastation.  He just can’t have these people see it.</p><p>He thinks he can hear Sophia protesting that he hasn’t agreed to do an interview, quoting all the things they’ve both heard various members of the media team repeat a million times.  He wants to collapse to his knees and thank her right there, because she shouldn’t be doing that, it should be Lotta dealing with the public, not her.</p><p>His throat is closing, eyes falling shut as the acceptance that he’s going to completely humiliate himself beginning to wash over him when Lotta navigates effortlessly through the crowd, grabs Sophia and him in both of her hands, and begins to drag them through the sea of bodies.</p><p>The requests form a tunnel, reverberate around him and infinitely escalate the throbbing in his head, so much so he just stumbles across the floor behind the girls, completely oblivious to where  he’s going that his eyes fly open like he’s been impaled when suddenly the pressure of humanity relents and he finds himself behind the bar.  The shouts follow him, but somehow, they’re a little blocked, probably from the overwhelming scent of coffee that they’ve submerged themselves in.</p><p>“What’s going on?” He gets out, a little out of it, catches the worry in Sophia’s eyes when she looks back at him.</p><p>“Elise told me we could go out the back way, and you two can wait in the car park for me to get the car,” he sees more than hears Lotta say.</p><p>“Who’s Elise?”</p><p>“The woman who served us.”</p><p>“The one you’ve got a crush on?” He asks, loudly, definitely aware he should be more discrete, but it’s out before he can control himself.  Lotta blushes starkly, shushing him, pointing at the door they’ve just passed through, but the girl isn’t following them.  “That’s why you wanted to come here, isn’t it?”</p><p>“Never mind that,” Lotta says quickly, “I’ll be back in ten, if that mob has gone.”</p><p>“Wait!  Why the fuck did you leave Soph and I in that?” He calls, unable to stop the annoyance from trickling into his voice, even when Sophia grips his arm in warning.</p><p>“I knew you weren’t listening.  I did it to see if Elise could get us out of there, not because I wanted you to be caught in that,” she responds sharply, throwing her shoulders back in a way that ends the conversation with such a finality.  She’s snuck through a gate seconds later, Sophia huffing out a complaint of Kai’s tone that he chooses to ignore.</p><p>He can’t ignore her, however, when she’s in her insistent mood, aided by the silence that’s fallen in the car park, the shut of the door stifling the background noise of the crowd of people that invaded the coffee shop.</p><p>“There’s going to be so many news stories about how I’m such a cunt,” he sighs, just to cut her off, “there were kids there that were begging for autographs.”</p><p>“You looked terrified, if any of them had any empathy they would’ve left you alone.  You can’t please everyone all the time, and we both know why you couldn’t stay to indulge them.  Let them write slanderous articles about how the fame’s gone to your head if they want to, because they don’t know the real truth.”</p><p>Post-event anxiety floods him, to the extent he relies on the brick wall he’s leaning against to keep him upright.  Lotta can’t have been gone more than two minutes, and he can see Sophia gearing up to digest what just happened, undercut everything she just excused him of with endless criticism that’s only going to jab into him.</p><p>“---I just think you were out of line to speak to Lotta like that, whether you were listening to what she said or not.”</p><p>“I was angry, okay?” He cuts back, a little snappy, feels a little stab of guilt at the way she recoils at his tone, “look, I don’t mean to snap but didn’t you literally just say how they were surrounding us?  I thought she’d left us there to suffer!”</p><p>“Yeah, whatever,” Sophia respond, voice dripping with sulk.</p><p>“Don’t get stroppy with me, please, Soph.”</p><p>“Don’t speak to me like that either.”</p><p>“Look, I’m sorry,” he apologises, trying to make her look at him from where she at some point stopped.  “I’m just pissed off with what happened in there, and I’m still fucking ashamed I have to go to therapy---,”</p><p>“I’m going to say you’re forgiven purely because I can’t let you work yourself up for your appointment.”</p><p>“That’s so reassuring,” he deadpans, knowing it’s risky.  Luckily, she smiles, giggles even though her eyes still slightly resemble stones, and they’re back to normal as easily as that.  That’s one of the best things about her, that they can never stay mad at each other for very long, as well as the infinite resource of support she has for him.  “Are you waiting for me or do you have other plans?”</p><p>“I’ve got an evening class, but Lotta said she’ll drop me off and then come back to pick you up.”</p><p>“Okay,” he says, before letting the conversation drop, brain mostly tuned in to the depleting noise of the café.  He’s almost weirdly entranced that he physically jumps back when the back-door swings open and Elise steps out.</p><p>“Sorry about all of that,” she says, blushing slightly when Kai shakes his head, offering an apology of his own for bringing that fate upon her business.  “Has Lotta gone to fetch her car?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Sophia nods, winking slightly, “don’t worry, she’ll be back any moment now.”</p><p>The blush deepens on the barista’s cheeks, and Kai knows Sophia notices as well, because they’re throwing mischievous glances at one another, silently plotting to get the two of them together.  Although, judging by the way Lotta advocated for this place when they were trying to decide on a location to meet, and the way she was at the counter before Kai had even so much as put his bag down, he’s not sure the two of them will exactly need his and Sophia’s help.</p><p>“My brother will lose his mind when I tell him you came here today,” Elise smiles, looking a little anxious, almost as though she was worried Kai’s going to exhibit some massive ego and tell her to shut up.  He wouldn’t do it anyway, but especially not to Lotta’s romantic interest, or when Sophia’s standing by his side.  “He’s a huge fan.  He used to rave about watching you and Brandt from the stands every time he got the chance to go to a match, and now he doesn’t shut up about how much he misses Brandt.”</p><p>Sophia stiffens by his side, not enough for Elise to notice, but Kai knows her so well he can’t miss it.  He knows she thinks he’s going to lose it, she’s seen enough of Kai falling into some dangerous incoherence over the past couple of months, she probably thinks he’s even more likely to because of what’s just happened, but he’s been searching for an opportunity to prove to her that he really is recovering, and he’s fucked every single one up so far.  Neither of them catches the little sharp exhale he lets out.</p><p>“I miss Julian a lot too.  It’s been weird adjusting to being without him.”</p><p>“Yeah, I think most people can see that, if I’m honest,” the barista says quietly, gaze dropping from Kai’s face.  “Ignore the people who heckle you, though.  You’re still the hero of this place, you’re just having a bad patch---, fuck, I’m sorry, you probably know all this--,”</p><p>“No, it’s nice to hear it from someone who’s not too involved with me,” he smiles back, and he really does mean it.  Ever since the fans turned on him, and it felt like he was the enemy of the masses, he’s been waiting for someone to just tell him they still support him.  Still, it’s sweeter than he could’ve ever expected.  “Thank you.”</p><p>Elise’s face brightens, but what she says is drowned out by the revs of Lotta’s engine.</p><p>“HEY!” Lotta yells from outside the gate, around the corner, “COME AND GET IN BEFORE THEY REALISE THAT YOU’RE IN THERE!”</p><p>“She’s lovely, but I swear that girl has no brain cells sometimes,” Sophia says bluntly, causing all three of them to fall into giggles that are still crippling them when they appear by Lotta’s car.</p><p>“What are you lot laughing at?” She says, only a little grumpy, when Kai opens the door to the passenger seat, Sophia climbing in behind, “even you Elise, really?  I thought what we had was special!”</p><p>“I didn’t realise you had anything,” Kai cuts in, sounding more like a roast than obliviousness.  It’s intended to be just for Sophia’s ears only, but he doesn’t quite get the volume right, and he can tell by the resurgent colour on Elise’s cheeks, and by the sharp way Lotta elbows him, that his voice has carried a lot more.  There’s barely enough time to stammer an apology when the barista leans up to Lotta’s open window, places the tiniest kiss on her cheek before hurrying back towards the café.</p><p>Kai lets her reverse out of the alleyway before he begins the teasing.</p><p>At some point during the journey, he quietens down, head leaning against his forearm as he stares out of the window.  He’s not sure why he feels like he does, why he feels like he’s ready to tell Hans everything and finally start to get some real help rather than simple symptom management, but he hopes it lasts long enough for him to sit down in the chair and start telling his therapist what really caused this.</p><p>He doesn’t tell the girls, just because he doesn’t want to let them down if he doesn’t manage it.  The peaceful silence is welcome, kind, doesn’t work its poison into his mind like he’s become accustomed to bracing himself for.  It’s just there, harmless in the same way Julian should be.</p><p>“Thank you,” he says, once Lotta pulls up by their entrance to the therapists, quickly glancing around to check no one’s followed them.  He turns to Sophia, “you’re coming to the match on Friday?”</p><p>“Yeah, see you then,”</p><p>“You too, bye,” he calls over his shoulder once he’s already out of the vehicle, smiling gently at Hans who is waiting by the door.  “Hi.”</p><p>“Hello, Kai,” Hans says, in the voice that couldn’t be threatening in a million years, “how are you?”</p><p>“I’m good, actually.  You?”</p><p>“I’m doing well,” the therapist responds, “would you like to carry on from where we left off last week?”</p><p>“Actually, I think I’m ready to properly talk about what happened to me,” he says, quickly enough to not be prevented by the barriers of inhibition.  For a moment, he instantly regrets it, wants to take it back and revert to the comfort blanket of unobtrusive comments that brush over what he’s feeling.  But he can’t.  Jannis’ words, that he actually only told Kai maybe two months ago about actually having to do things to get better, ring in his ears.  It’s childish, but he can’t stop himself, “just please, don’t laugh.”</p><p>He knows he can trust Hans from the look of abject horror that crosses his face just from Kai’s mere inclination.</p><p>It’s just another conversation about Julian, he tells himself bluntly, and he isn’t wrong.  By this point, he should be an expert on how to approach this shit; but even now, when he’s faced with all the things he shoved back for ages, the emotions he hid for years, an unquantifiable amount of times, admitting it still feels fresh and new and terrifying when he’s met with the expectant gazes he loathes.</p><p>“The basic point is I was in love with my best friend and he left without telling me.  It’s stupid, I know.”</p><p>“That is not stupid at all,” the older man replies, and Kai could think that it sounds rehearsed, that he could leave the session after their allotted hour is up and Hans could eyeroll, or fall about laughing, but he chooses not to.  A part of him just wants to believe him, so he does.  “Really, Kai.  That’s a very normal activating event.”</p><p>“Probably not normal for someone who acts as extreme as I do.”</p><p>“There will be several factors behind that, as I’ve told you before.  Please, do not be embarrassed.  Would you like to tell me anything else?”</p><p>“Yeah, I suppose I should---,” he breathes out, holding a hand to halt Hans’ imminent protest, “I just mean, I need a moment to collect myself.”</p><p>He doesn’t, really, he knows where he’ll start, but it’s more the fact that every other time he’s had to do this he’s been cut off by waves of rising panic, sent out by the other party and their judgemental stares.  Maybe because it’s Hans, or maybe because he’s used to it, or even because that timebomb he’d become never reset itself and he hasn’t tried since it exploded, but the panic never comes.  It’s nothing but a calm flood of serenity.</p><p>“Take all the time you need.”</p><p>“Thanks, and sorry if I start waffling.”</p><p>“That’s not a problem.”</p><p>“I had this mutual friend with benefits relationship with my best friend that had been going on for about eighteen months, and at some point in that time I’d fallen for him.  He’d gone home from this holiday we were having early, saying he needed to go for someone’s birthday, when actually it was just to go and sign for another club without telling me---,” he pauses, before realising how much of a entitled cunt he must sound.  “By that, we had a promise that if we were going to transfer, we would tell each other way ahead of time, and he didn’t, and I didn’t know how to deal with it.”</p><p>Hans is stoic, listening intently.  The quiet in the room is Kai’s only cue to go on.</p><p>“I turned up at his house and I just couldn’t get any of what I really wanted to say out.  I just kept thinking that he knew how I felt about him, and I got so scared, but then, we made up like two weeks later and went on holiday somewhere else.  I’m sorry for saying this, but we had a lot of sex.”</p><p>“You don’t need to censor anything you think might be important,” Hans smiles.</p><p>Kai feels his skin heat up, but it’s not like before, doesn’t feel the crushing weight of the pressure to reveal everything.  It’s simply just because he’s talking about his sex life.</p><p>“I lied a lot, I kept pretending it was okay, until I started getting really unwell from all the stress, so I texted him that I didn’t want to hear from him anymore and pretended I was done with it.”</p><p>The lack of adlib is almost disconcerting, save for the fact Kai’s relieved to have it.</p><p>“If it worked, I wouldn’t be sitting here now,” the slightest sick laugh slips out.  “That’s when the panic attacks started, and I’d hate to think that the first one happened because I had some kind of reliance on him, but part of me thinks it has to be.”</p><p>“Do you want to find the individual cause of each panic attack?” Hans asks, and it actually takes Kai the slightest moment to deduce that his therapist isn’t actually joking.  “We can do that if you’d want to.”</p><p>“Not really, there’s some of them I’d rather not relive.”</p><p>“Okay,” Hans smiles, ever accepting.  “Is there anything else you would like to say?”</p><p>“There’s a little more, but this is where it starts to get messy and I act like a cunt and I don’t want you to judge me, or tell me that I fucked up because I know I have---,”</p><p>“I won’t, Kai.  I’m simply here to listen.  During my training I had sessions with men who’d killed people and didn’t show a drop of remorse, so you really don’t have anything to worry about.  Just go at your own pace, don’t feel forced to admit anything you’re not ready to talk about.”</p><p>“There’s been no consistency since that happened.  There’d be times when I’d feel okay when he’d be around or someone would talk about him, and then there were times when I’d end up fighting my teammate in the locker room because he outed me or running out of the hotel room I was meant to be sharing with him just so he didn’t see me freak out.  I’ve been doing it to myself, really.” The admission is a little blasé, some sort of underlying reluctant acceptance he hadn’t even realised he had.</p><p>“Are the two of you still in this stage?”</p><p>“No, the last time I saw him we had a massive fight and we haven’t spoken since.”</p><p>He knows what his therapist is about to ask him, can see it forming on his lips, but he doesn’t feel like it’s invasive.  And even though he’s always known it, for the first time, he can really appreciate what Hans is doing for him.</p><p>“What was the fight about?”</p><p>“He started yelling about the way I’d been treating him and everyone else, that I thought no one was good enough to talk to me, and I got so annoyed I started yelling back and mocking him just because I didn’t want him to see me like that, and it got worse from there.  I ended up confessing that I was seeing you and about how shit the attacks are and that his ex-boyfriend, who raped him, had messaged me telling me to dump him so he could take him back.  I just felt so fucking guilty.”</p><p>“Did you end on a clear note, or was there some ambiguity?” It’s like the older man already knows, maybe he was watching through some surveillance camera or some shit.</p><p>“There was a lot of ambiguity,” he admits, eyeline dropping to the hands curled together in his lap.  “Not entirely of my own doing, though.”</p><p>“It happens.”</p><p>Kai wants to kick himself, because suddenly the atmosphere in the room has shifted from progressive back to the inherent state of awkwardness that made him clamp up about what he was feeling.  It’s back to feeling as if the room has been doused in something pungent and sterile, an imperceptible, repulsive stench that he cannot let get into his lungs.  His organs are burning out with their need, and he’s not sure if he’ll break or die first.</p><p>Initially, when Hans remains silent, Kai assumes it’s some kind of revelation of what he’s been telling himself the whole time; that the man doesn’t actually care about him.  It’s only when some sensical part of him makes its monthly reappearance and screams at him that it’s probably because the older man is merely giving him time to himself, or maybe he’s waiting for anything else Kai needs to add to the story, and it’s enough for him to breathe out, “that’s it.”</p><p>“And the panic attacks have been occurring at intervals throughout this period, correct?”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“Okay,” Hans says, scribbling something down on a notepad chock-full of incoherent shapes that probably closer resemble hieroglyphics than letters.  “It’s pretty clear that you’re struggling to move on---,”</p><p>The man continues to speak at him, rambling on about all the things he remembers whining to Jannis about; that he misses this unnamed culprit, that he’s struggling to move on, and his eyes are scanning the room, wondering which table would be best to flip as he exits the room when the older man says something that snaps his attention back to the proceedings.</p><p>He’s going to get whiplash if that keeps happening.</p><p>“Do you want to move on from him or would you rather tell him?”</p><p>“I was going to just see what happens, that’s always been our style.”</p><p>Hans commands infinite respect for not rebuking the obvious rebuttal.</p><p>“You don’t have to decide right now, but if it’s what you want, we can work together in moving on from him.  Do you want to keep talking about this today, or another week?”</p><p>“Another week, please.  Can we go back to what we were doing last week?”</p><p>“Absolutely.  Have you had any panic attacks since I saw you last?”</p><p>“No,” he answers, and the best thing about it is the fact he’s able to look his therapist in the eye, instead of being plagued by the relentless pangs of guilt when he lies.  “There have been times when I thought I was coming close, but I managed to calm myself down and I feel as if I’m making progress anyway.”</p><p>It’s only when they’ve fallen a little deeper into the chat that is becoming a painstaking reoccurrence does Kai properly realise he never actually named Julian, and part of him has to stifle a giggle at Hans awkwardly trying to refer to his former best friend during their upcoming sessions without breaking and asking for his name.  Really, if the older man wanted to discover the guilty party, he’d have to spend about two minutes searching Kai’s name on the internet, but there must still be a subconscious part of him that doesn’t trust the friendly glint in Hans’ eyes.</p><p>He doesn’t even cut in when Hans moves on to discussing the desired outcome of the next week of Kai’s life, nods and murmurs agreement at the list of things he won’t ever remember to do and not do, doesn’t interject when the older man explicitly asks him if there’s anything else he wishes to say, and then their session is over, and he’s out of there, heading straight from Hans’ white walls into the plush seats of Lotta’s car.</p><p>He might feel weirdly happy, even with Julian still stuck on his mind.</p><p>If the feelings he’s still harbouring could wash away in the river, from the second he bolted from Julian’s old house (that he still avoids on the way to training) he’d have been in the water, scrubbing his skin until it was raw and blistering.  If they could blow away in the wind, he’d have stood in an open field and let the gusts take it from him, disregarding the ice in their power that might have frozen his bones as the nights drew in.  If he could’ve done anything to minimise the agony he’s suffered, he’d have done it in a heartbeat, and if it had been someone else, it might have been possible.</p><p>He knows that could never happen though, he thinks as he stares out at the now-grotesquely familiar outskirt streets, could never happen in this life.</p><p>Not when it’s Julian.</p><p>• • • • • •</p><p>The sun sits low in the sky as Kai dribbles the ball down the pitch, casting low streaks of amber over the grass and catching delicately on Kai’s exposed skin.  The ball, a natural extension of his feet, does exactly what he wants as he nimbly avoids Sven and the lunging challenge the centre-back attempts, before laying the ball off to Kevin, who slots it neatly past Lukas and with the low sound of the gentle rustle of wind pierced by the shrill noise of Bosz’s whistle, the practice match is over.</p><p>Lotta’s sitting in a coat that’s probably four sizes too big for her on the bench behind the officials, typing away on her laptop and only pausing to shoot Kai the smallest of smiles.  She’s not often there, normally prefers to work away from the hazard of wayward balls, but it’s funny to watch her try not to shiver in lieu of her excessive clothing.  Mitch must clock her too, because he snorts slightly from where he’s next to Kai, not really paying attention to what their coach is telling them.</p><p>They’re playing tomorrow night in Wolfsburg, before they’re dismissed to prepare for the international break that commences in Düsseldorf on Monday.  The thought sends a spark of pain down Kai’s spine, because he’s going to be back in close proximity to Julian without having completely closed the wounds of what happened last time.</p><p>Bosz ends training with a sharp reminder to be at the gates to the training complex at nine the following morning, stalking back to his office with the rest of the staff in tow.</p><p>“He’s moody today, wasn’t he?” Jonathan says.</p><p>“Don’t think he’s very happy with our Bundesliga placing at the moment,” Lars says, trying to keep his voice firm and maintain his role as the middle ground between the staff and the team.  They’re heading back towards the changing rooms, Lars trying to fix a rift coming from an altercation Paulinho and Leon had during the match, and Kai doesn’t envy his responsibility a bit.</p><p>The sky was cloudless, so when he feels the sheet of water fall over him, after the initial shock from the cold, he’s momentarily confused at where the sudden rain came from.  It’s only when he hears the laughter and whips around, spotting Jonathan, Mitch and Lotta holding now-empty buckets (where the <em>fuck </em>did they even get them from?) does he manage to deduce what’s actually just happened.</p><p>“You’re all cunts,” he says, diving towards whichever one of them happens to be closest.  Lotta, weighed down by her incomprehensive mass of coat, ends up being plucked from the floor as Kai’s arms settle around her middle.  Her screaming is annoyingly pitchy in his ear.  “Serves you right.”</p><p>Avoiding the particularly slippery patch of wet ground, he grabs the bucket Lotta had and quickly fills it up at the outdoor tap he’s seen used about three times since he arrived in Leverkusen as a ten year old, hurling it in the general direction of the team that have been lingering to see all the shit unfold.  They shouldn’t be doing this, the training complex is unusually public, the media could get pictures of them acting like idiots so easily, to the point he almost freezes once the water clatters over his friends, waiting for Lars’ evisceration.</p><p>“I should tell you off,” the captain says, as if on cue, “but I’d hoped the smile I saw on your face the other day at mine wasn’t temporary, but if you’re doing this, I’m pretty sure it isn’t.  Just this once, I’ll let you act like kids again while on site.”</p><p>Part of him thinks Lars is being a little patronising, but he doesn’t question it, simply fights off Jonathan who’s attempting to steal his bucket in addition to his own and turns to fill it up again, those who are not wanting to be involved slinking off while the rest of them crowd around, floods of childlike anticipation flowing through them.  A couple return with makeshift weapons that barely withstand the force of the water being poured into them.</p><p>“Aren’t you going to get in trouble with the media team for being involved in this?” Kai yells at Lotta over the laughs starting to rise up from the fight that’s beginning to pick up pace.</p><p>“I’m finished for the day!” She responds, just before Mitch dunks a massive bucket of water on her head, cowering away from the resulting scream like he’s afraid she might attack him.  “I should really write an inside scoop about what idiots you all are though!”</p><p>“Don’t act like this wasn’t your idea, Schneider!”</p><p>Kai’s run out further into the centre of the field to avoid someone else’s attempt to throw water at him, stepping backwards a little daintily, looking back up just quick enough to see Mitch attempt to career towards him with a bucket full to the brim, only to slip on a particularly wet, muddy patch and upend the bucket all over himself as he falls to the ground.  Judging by the laugh he lets out that probably sounds more like a strangled cat than anything else, it’s the funniest thing Kai’s seen in ages.</p><p>The disgruntled look plastered on Mitch’s face is worth almost all the awkward training sessions they’ve had since Julian and Sam left.  Being a little older, he was always the victim to their schemes, and there’s such a stunning familiarity in the older man’s expression, Kai keels over slightly from the sudden, wistful stab of pain.</p><p>“This is why you don’t start,” Jonathan calls out over the laughs that are still howling, in a way that is not uncanny to an especially deranged pack of wolves, “can’t keep on your feet?”</p><p>“You little fucker,” Mitch says, trying and failing to hide the tentative way he climbs to his feet, “when you have another bad run of scoring own goals and get demoted to the bench, don’t come crying to me again!”</p><p>Mitch regrets that one when he notices Jonathan holding a bowl, surging towards him and tipping it over his head.  By the expletives that fall out of the older man’s mouth, and the various oddly shaped chunks that hit the floor, it’s apparent someone had snuck ice cubes in it.</p><p>Kai starts jogging towards Lotta, intent on gently pushing her into the puddle of freezing water (it’s November, he vaguely remembers, they’re definitely risking a million potential illnesses with what is stupidity, but the thought isn’t enough to stop him) only to lose track of Paulinho, appearing from nowhere to hurl a makeshift water balloon that hits him square in the cheek.</p><p>“Fuck!” He yells, arms scrabbling at thin air as he attempts to keep his balance.  The second he’s upright, he’s almost collapsed on the floor in giggles.  The water is so fucking cold.  He’s unarmed, he’d lost his bucket somewhere in the mess of laughing at Mitch, so all he can do is sink his hands into the waterlogged grass, mud squeezing disgustingly underneath his nails, tearing out hunks of water, mud and grass and lobbing them in Paulinho’s direction.</p><p>Most of them miss, one catches Jonathan slightly in the crossfire, and the other hits its intended target square in the face.  The lot of them can hardly breathe for laughing, let alone move when Lars comes back out, already fully changed and his kitbag packed for the following day.  For a second, the captain, flanked by his twin who Kai didn’t notice before, simply observes the scene (half the younger side of their team lying in muddy grass that more resembles a swamp than anything else) before Paulinho sits up, a little dazed, mud sliding off his skin with a piercing glower thrown in Kai’s direction.  The precise moment Lars spots him is obvious, because the edges of his lips perk up with childish amusement.</p><p>His voice is the antithesis, level and bordering harsh, when he speaks,</p><p>“Paulinho, what happened to your face?”</p><p>“Kai threw mud at me after I chucked a water balloon at him.”</p><p>“Why did you throw mud, Kai?” The captain’s tone reminds Kai of one of his primary school teachers, who used to heave a wearied sigh whenever two students fell out, call them into her classroom and reprimand them.  She never shouted, but anyone always came out with remorse practically falling out of their eyes.  It’s a little stupid, because Kai knows Paulinho isn’t actually mad, nor would snitch on him like some smarmy arrogant kid, and for that reason alone he has to bite his tongue to keep from falling about into yet another fit of giggles.</p><p>“I didn’t have a bucket, and I wanted to take my revenge.  It’s just part of the fun and games, Lars.”</p><p>He meets Paulinho’s eyes under the intense expression of the twins, who look even more alike when they have the same look of distaste painted on their faces, smirks when the attacker shoots him a wink. </p><p>“You shouldn’t really be doing this anyway, I made that clear when I left you, but obviously I did decide to let you mess about because it’s so good to see the fun Kai back.  But if you’re going to start acting like this and tearing up our training field,” Lars nods at the finger marks planted deep in the soil, and Kai can’t help but feel as though he’s overreacting a little at the couple of mismatched little holes, “I think I’d rather have mopey Kai back.”</p><p>“Believe me, you don’t,” Lotta says, fearless in the face of the annoyed glance Lars shoots her. “I’ve dealt with enough of his meltdowns to last me a lifetime.”</p><p>He loves her, he really does, they’ve only known each other a relatively short time but she’s done so much for him that he couldn’t possibly not, but he can’t help but duck his head, feeling even the tips of his ears tinge scarlet with heat from the humiliation that settles over him, cursing her out under his breath because he really wishes she’d said anything else but that.  He’s about to vocalise a weak protest when Lars cuts him off,</p><p>“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try and cut me off, Lotta, when I’m trying to tell these idiots off.”</p><p>“You gave us permission!”</p><p>“Because I thought it was a couple of harmless buckets of water!” Lars retorts, sounding way more het up at the challenges he’s probably not used to receiving.  “And just those four!  Not half the team and a flooded training pitch!”</p><p>“It’s a bit of water---,”</p><p>“The sun’s out, it’ll have dried up in no time---,”</p><p>Kai wonders if the captain knows how much he resembles Bosz when he sighs.</p><p>“Sorry, guys, but I’m going to have to ask you to stop and go to the changing rooms now--,” he’s interrupted by a couple of stray grumbles, “and if anyone refuses, I’ll go to Bosz and tell him what’s happened, and you all know he wasn’t in a good mood earlier.”</p><p>“He’s not the only one,” Mitch whispers in Kai’s ear, a little riskily because Sven seems to be acting as another pair of eyes when Lars addresses the other half of the semicircle, “what the hell got into him in the last ten minutes?”</p><p>“Probably the same thing as Bosz,” Kai murmurs back, “it’s not just me that’s getting slammed by the fans.”</p><p>Lars, red in the face by now, finally finishes whatever lecture he’d begun, dismissing them with a pointed look in the direction of the changing rooms.  The group’s quiet for a little while, the kind of silence Kai hasn’t felt since his year ten biology class got a complete berating from the teacher who, up until then, had seemed like the nicest man on the planet.</p><p>“I don’t get why he threatened telling Bosz like he wouldn’t know what happened, right after yelling at Kai for fucking up the grass?  If he’d done that much damage, surely Bosz would’ve noticed anyway?”</p><p>“I don’t think this is time for logic,” Mitch says, but can Kai see him suppressing a smile.</p><p>He understands Lars, even more so from the perspective of his own career, which is teetering further away from what was described as a dreamland last season, but he still feels a little disappointed at the sudden reversal of the captain’s mood.  With every day that passes, the months hurtling headlong into the deepest nights of winter, football is becoming more enjoyable to him again, but stupid fun like that, when he forgot who he was and how it felt like everyone was talking about him at one point, he hasn’t felt that in such a long time.  And fuck, it had lasted ten minutes and was already over and he wanted it back immediately.</p><p>He remembers how he felt when the plane home from Barcelona came into land, about how he’d despised being a professional footballer for those few minutes.  He’d never experienced such a hatred for football in his entire life, because if it wasn’t for football, he wouldn’t have known Julian, wouldn’t have known any of this pain.  That bitter sting had dissipated as quick as it had come, but a part of it had wormed into Kai’s heart, resurfacing on occasion to remind Kai it was still there at times like now, looking forlornly at the picture of his shirt emblazoned on his locker as he grabs his towel to get in the showers.</p><p>Paulinho’s there when he gets into the communal shower block, and he’s there when he leaves, still trying to get the specks of dried mud out of his hair.  He’s giggling to himself, audible over the water, but Kai knows better than to ask, hurrying in washing the shampoo out of his hair and wrapping a towel around his middle.</p><p>A stray curl falls into his eye as he dries himself.  Swiping the messy curls out of his face, up into some unkempt resemblance of his quiff, tutting at how much he hates his hair, he pulls an old Nike shirt on, not getting involved in whatever game has broken out in the changing room, and leaves.  He doesn’t go home immediately, turning the other way and heading towards Lotta’s office.</p><p>“Hey,” he says, entering without knocking, from where she’s rubbing her hair dry with the end of that oversized coat, “you didn’t get in trouble, did you?”</p><p>“Nah, evaded my boss,” she grins, locking her office behind them and pulling the hood over her hair, “are you walking today?”</p><p>“Yeah, it was nice weather this morning and I didn’t sleep that well last night,” he says, pausing to press his finger against the electronic sign out.  “Are you driving?”</p><p>She nods, telling him something about the new vegan supermarket she wants to try out, rambling on about some product or other that is so uninteresting Kai doesn’t even realise he’s zoned out until her voice fades, stopping instinctively by her car. </p><p>“See you here at nine tomorrow?”</p><p>“Yeah,” he says again, trying not to look as out of it as he inexplicably feels, “see you then.”</p><p>If she looks him up and down and suspicion flickers in her blue eyes, Kai pretends not to notice.  It’s easy to forget once she’s gone, driven back towards wherever she lives, and he’s trudging down the quiet side road, the people living in the opposite housing estate either too rich or too used to the sight of them to care or bother him. It’s Thursday anyway, midweek, most of them are probably at work, the path is deserted, although it isn’t often that he leaves the complex and turns this way.</p><p>He'd be worried that he doesn’t feel anything if it wasn’t wholly relieving.  It doesn’t stop his mind wandering, eyes tracking the treeline that he knows the little river flows behind, wonders, not for the first time, if it’s a little tributary to the river that runs through Dortmund.  If, in some world where he could walk on water, he could glide across its glassy surface, all the way to where Julian is now.</p><p>Maybe he wouldn’t be so well known there, wouldn’t have to yank a beanie down over his curls or stick his headphones on, blasting some rap music that would drown out anyone approaching him, intent on an autograph.  He could just walk around the city, figure out what’s so good about it, why Julian would leave a club on the up in a city that neighboured fucking <em>K</em><em>ӧln,</em> and try not to think of the day Kai spent there with Julian and Jannis themselves, that little bar, everything.  How it looks so innocent bedecked in the garish yellow that blinds anyone who suspects it of pain.</p><p>At least, he thinks drily, when his heart wakes again, pricks his emotions a couple of times like some sort of treacherous form of entertainment, his emotions haven’t deserted him for good.  God knows he’ll need a sense of humour to deal with whatever bullshit Leon tries next week.</p><p>He wasn’t paying attention to it at the time, mind swept away by cursing out and taking revenge on Lotta, Mitch, Jonathan, Paulinho earlier, but now he’s alone to ponder it, the realisation slaps him in the face; he thinks he remembers an intrusive laugh carried on the wind, probably just dismissed it as one of the others.  If it was really there, and not a figment of his imagination (sometimes, he’s had trouble deciphering between the two recently) he could’ve sworn that Julian’s laugh was floating, carefree, in the late autumn air.</p><p>If anyone was around to see him, they would’ve thought he was insane, because he whips around as though he expects Julian to be standing behind him, maybe sporting an expectantly raised eyebrow or something.  The street is just as deserted as it’s been the entire time Kai’s been walking down it.</p><p>Save for the music, the only sound would be his footsteps, which is why it feels like a completely different world when he turns the next corner and suddenly he’s met by what feels like the entire population of Leverkusen, milling around, chatter so loud he reaches for his phone and turns his music up a couple of bars, pulling his hat closer to his eyes.  Cursing, he checks the time, the kids would’ve just got off school, he can see the older schoolgirls giggling, arm in arm as they discuss someone’s crush or someone’s date or some shit that he always heard Sophia and her mates talk about.  Sometimes, he gets spotted by some of them, and sees the moment they decide he’s good-looking, because they flick their hair back and giggle extra hard.</p><p>He makes it halfway across the square before he feels a hand on his shoulder, biting his lip very hard to make sure he doesn’t swear again, painting the very-fake public smile on his face as he pulls his earphones out.</p><p>The façade drops immediately, replaced by something a lot more real when he sees who it is.</p><p>“Hey,” Jannis says, “trying to go undetected, are you?”</p><p>“Yeah,” he shoots back, falling back into that easy tone he always adopts with Julian’s middle brother, “it was going so well until you came over.”</p><p>“You forget I know you so well, I could pick you out on a sinking ship.”</p><p>There’s a little silence, before Kai pulls a face that must belie utter confusion, because suddenly they’re keeling over with laughter, Kai choking out some sort of “what the fuck, Jannis?” over his giggles.  They’ve probably drawn attention to themselves by the time they’re finally composed enough to actually have a conversation, so Jannis just grabs Kai’s arm and starts dragging him into a side-street, the same one Kai walked down yesterday when he met the rest of the guys in the café.</p><p>“Where are you taking me?”</p><p>“You don’t have somewhere to be, do you?” Jannis asks, alarmed, not answering Kai’s question.</p><p>“No, just needed to grab some stuff and then go back to my flat.  Can’t stay too long though, Sophia’s coming over to eat with me.”</p><p>“How is she?” Jannis says, pushing open the door to Elise’s café, waving in the direction of someone Kai can’t make out.  Elise herself, is behind the bar, glancing upwards to greet the new customers and almost tripping over her own feet when she notices Kai.</p><p>“Good,” he answers absentmindedly, approaching Elise.  “Hey, may I have a coffee please.”</p><p>“Sure,” she says, “where are you sitting?”</p><p>“I don’t actually know,” Kai says, turning to Jannis, “want anything?”</p><p>“I’ve already got mine, thanks.  Left to pick up some apples and bumped into you, and hurry up will you? Mum and dad have clocked you and they’re dying to speak to you.”</p><p>“Over in that direction,” he adds to Elise, putting down the money and wishing her a good day, a little grateful she declines his offer to take his drink to the table, because his hands are shaking all of a sudden.  He hasn’t seen Julian’s parents since the final game of last season, when his mother leant over the barriers and planted a wet kiss on Kai’s forehead.</p><p>It’s unbelievable how much has changed since then.  It’s even more unbelievable how they act like <em>nothing </em>has changed, Julian’s mother, Heike, springing to her feet the moment he makes his way though the crowd of people, arms aloft and open and Kai’s pulled into a hug before he can even croak out a greeting.</p><p>“Oh, Kai,” she breathes into his shoulder, sounding dangerously like she’s about to start crying, “I missed you.  It’s been too long since I’ve seen you--,”</p><p>“Hey, Kai,” Julian’s father says, once Kai’s released from Heike’s grasp, “good to see you.”</p><p>“It’s good to see you too,” he says, loudly, just as Elise comes over with his drink.  Heike gets distracted by complimenting the barista’s hairpiece, and with his parents distracted, Kai leans over to Jannis and whispers, “Julian’s not here, right?”</p><p>“No,” Jannis whispers back, catching onto Kai’s uncertainty and dropping his tone, “he’ll still be in training right now.”</p><p>“Good,” Kai mutters, not entirely certain if he wants Jannis to pick up on it.  Judging by the way his friend’s face brightens as his father, Jürgen, makes a joke with Elise, he doesn’t.  Kai couldn’t imagine anything worse than an awkward reunion with Julian right in front of his parents, who probably don’t have any idea anything is even wrong.</p><p>Kai feels mildly sick.  By the time he’s swallowed enough times to be confident he isn’t going to eject his lunch directly onto Heike’s lap, Elise’s gone, and the entire family’s attentions are placed squarely back on him.  Kai sees Julian’s smile reflected right back in Heike’s smile, and he has to shift in his seat to counteract the way his stomach lurches violently.</p><p>“We’ve been following your progress, and Leverkusen’s in general,” Jürgen says, “we owe a lot to that club--,”</p><p>“I do too,” Kai adds weakly.</p><p>“Have you been feeling alright?  You’re still ridiculously talented, anyone with eyes can see that, but there’s been something off about you lately.  I can see it in your face, even when you’re just on TV.”</p><p>Jannis stiffens beside him, muttering endless apologies that only Kai can hear, and for once, they actually fucking work.  If Jannis hasn’t told his parents, and Kai knows Julian found out because of Jonas anyway, Kai knows he can trust him.  It’s about the best fucking thing he’s heard all week, because his trust is in low fucking supply and having it not misplaced is about the greatest gift imaginable.</p><p>“I’ve not had the easiest of times,” he says, almost stifling a laugh at the understatement, “but I’ve been feeling better recently.  Jannis has been really helpful, and Lotta, and Sophia of course.”</p><p>“We met Sophia in Berlin, didn’t we!” Heike exclaims, “she was that really sweet, pretty girl!  Did you ever date her?”</p><p>“No,” he says, looking away because he can see the calculating glimmer in Julian’s mother’s eyes.  He’s internally debating whether or not he should ask her about it, but Jürgen interjects,</p><p>“Sorry, but did you mention a Lotta?  We knew one once, she was Julian’s first girlfriend right before he moved to Wolfsburg, so he must have been maybe sixteen… She seemed really sweet, and then she went and told the entire school he was gay!”</p><p>“I know,” Kai adds grimly, only just noticing the way Jannis’ gaze has dropped to his drink awkwardly, “it’s the same girl.  Lotta Schneider.  She works for the English media department at Bayer.”</p><p>He could be making it up, but he’s sure he can feel Elise’s eyes piercing into the back of his neck the moment he mentions Lotta.  The atmosphere around the table has gone a little awkward, the slightest wave of tension frothing over them, but Kai isn’t quite sure how to put into words how much Lotta has changed.  Parental hatred is sometimes quite difficult to eradicate, there’s a boy from Lea’s primary school class that his mother still detests, but to his surprise, Jannis speaks up.  Kai takes the chance to take a sip of coffee, almost burning his tongue in an attempt to paper over his own discomfiture.</p><p>“She was a bitch, don’t try and scold me, you know it as well as I do,” he murmurs, “but it’s possible for people to change, and she’s proof of it.  She’s taken better care of Kai since she arrived in Leverkusen than anyone, and I’ll let Kai tell you the details if he wants you to know them, but god knows he’s needed it.  Plus, you know Jule and her made up, back when he came back to get his suit for Abiball.”</p><p>Heike purses her lips, eyes flickering between the two of them.  There’s the completely unwelcome feeling of being dissected.</p><p>“What is Jannis talking about, Kai?” Jürgen asks, ignoring the pointed protests Jannis squeaks out.  “Have you been in trouble?  I thought you had your brother around, and Sophia, but I guess they wouldn’t necessarily be in the training complex.”</p><p>“Not really trouble,” he says, suspecting that Julian’s parents aren’t going to let him get away without elaborating.  He just hates how his voice fucking trembles in their presence, like they’re going to chastise him like some kind of fourth son. “Just, recently, I’ve had a few mental health problems and she found me a therapist, some guy she’d known at university.”</p><p>Heike’s eyes have narrowed when he finally gets the courage to look back up at them.</p><p>“I’m not sure you can trust her, I mean, the things she said about Julian…”</p><p>“I trust her,” Jannis cuts in, a little harsher than he probably intended.  It makes the coffee Kai’s just swallowed burn his insides, threaten a hugely embarrassing choking fit.  All the water in the world couldn’t cool the skin that’s starting to blister red.  Without even remembering how to fucking breathe, he looks shakily back up at Jannis, who is staring his parents down with an almost defiant look.  “I’ve been here, I’ve seen what happened to Kai, I’ve seen that she’s been fucking fantastic in helping him, there really isn’t anything to worry about!”</p><p>Maybe it’s because they’re worried Jannis might cause a scene, but Julian’s parents clamp their mouths shut, expressions softening with sympathy as they turn their gazes back to Kai.</p><p>“Do you want to tell us anything else about your mental health issues?”</p><p>Kai knows they don’t mean their questions to sound like a gaggle of circling vultures, ready to swoop and eat whatever scraps he proffers them.  They care about him, they have done since they came to one of their Champions League matches and swept Kai into their arms the moment they made eye contact with him, they’ve stayed in his flat when they were supposed to be staying at Julian and Jannis’, only for Jannis to burst a pipe and flood the entire apartment.  They probably can just see the cracks that are starting to form, want to get him out before they break completely, and he dissolves into piles of crumbling ruin.  He wonders if they know they’re unintentionally making it so much worse.</p><p>“Not really, sorry,” he stammers, and then before he’s aware he’s even going to say it, “how’s Julian?”</p><p>“Good,” Heike says, face visibly brightening from the clouds that had formed over it when Kai declined, “we went to see him before we came to Kӧln to visit Jannis, and he seems to be very happy in Dortmund, but, Kai, forgive me for asking, but he mentioned that you and him had a fight?”</p><p>Kai’s throat closes, fire squeezing painfully and thick smoke making it nigh-on impossible to breathe.  He needs to stop coming to this damn café, because it must be cursed to eliciting the symptoms of panic attacks from him, because he’d been fine up until the two days this week he’s been in here.  Heike and Jürgen are moments away from turning on him, just like they did with Lotta, Julian’s going to have told them everything, all about how fucking selfish Kai’s acted, and that’s going to be the end of any sort of interaction he’s ever going to have with the family who have been so accommodating to him.</p><p>“He seemed really upset about it,” Jürgen adds, voice almost sombre, “it was weird, I’ve never really seen him like it.  He kept talking, but he never finished his sentences, it was this unusual muttering and then he stopped looking at Heike and me, looking for want of a better description like he’s been possessed.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Kai gulps awkwardly, flushing scarlet when he realises his voice is pitched the highest it’s been since he hit puberty.  “Yeah, it, um, it wasn’t pretty at all.”</p><p>“Then he just kept saying that you left and not really giving us any more detail.”</p><p>“I did walk out, yeah.  He looked like he’d had enough of me.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t have thought that was ever possible,” Heike smiles, a warmth in it that does a lot to alleviate Kai of some of the tension that’s crushing him like some kind of taunting hydraulic press.  “The two of you, well---,”</p><p>Jannis must know what’s coming, when his mother’s voice trails off awkwardly, because he leans across and whispers a frantic apology.  There’s barely anything they could say that could evoke a reaction worthy of one, but Kai appreciates it anyway.</p><p>“Sorry, what?”</p><p>“When I first met you, I thought you were dating Julian,” Heike says quickly, cheeks reddening in an expression a scary reconstruction of a child caught red-handed doing something they shouldn’t, “but then Jürgen told me that couldn’t be true, because you were with Sophia.  But now you’ve told us you weren’t and have never been with her, I… did you and Julian break up that night you fought?”</p><p>If he had a mouthful of coffee when she’d asked that, it’d be staining Jannis’ white top by now.</p><p>“No,” he coughs, glancing furtively around the room to check there isn’t anyone eavesdropping, ready to report on every little detail Kai might give.  But the café is pretty quiet, and those who are there are embroiled in their own discussions, not paying Kai and Julian’s family a second glance.  Elise shuffles around behind the counter, humming something and looking a little dreamy.  “We were never together, not like that.  I know some people thought we were though,” he cuts himself off, not quite sure if he should finish his sentence, but judging by the look on their faces, he’s sure they know anyway, “and honestly, I would’ve liked to have been.  It just didn’t happen.”</p><p>Their responses are shocked, monosyllabic, and put Kai right back in the cage of interrogation.  He tries to discreetly finish his coffee and make a fucking run for it, mentally planning his escape until Heike meets his eyes and flashes another one of those reassuring grins.</p><p>“Julian doesn’t know what he’s missing, does he?” She says lightly, and both Jannis and Jürgen crack up laughing.  The noise floods Kai with the same sense of belonging he used to revel in when they visited Leverkusen regularly.  “You would’ve made such a good son-in-law!”</p><p>Kai isn’t sure which is louder; the whine of unrivalled protest Jannis lets out, or the roaring laughter Jürgen dissolves into.  Both of which are extremely out of place for the tiny table, and both of them make Kai feel so relaxed the rising panic he’d been in the midst of minutes ago couldn’t seem further away now.  Heike’s refusing their attacks, repeating something about mothers and some sort of instinct in knowing a good partner for their children when she meets them.  Kai’s more than a little delighted he falls into such a category.</p><p>Humiliation at admitting his feelings for their son have completely vanished by the time he hugs them all goodbye, calling a goodbye to Elise as he exits, and he’s in such a good mood he doesn’t even notice the three mile walk back to his flat, or the time, until he gets there and sees Sophia sitting on the steps outside.</p><p>“Hello,” she grumbles, “where the hell have you been?”</p><p>“Fuck,” he answers, by way of greeting (her eyebrows flick up in what he hopes is amusement), pulling his phone out.  It’s half an hour after they’d agreed he’d let her in. “Shit, I’m so sorry, it’s a long story---,”</p><p>“It better be a good one, I’m fucking freezing.”</p><p>Her voice is tinged with a little venom, but he knows her, and by the time he’s broken out into the most expensive brand in his coffee collection and recounted how he confessed all his feelings to the object of his affection’s parents and younger brother, she’s completely forgotten about his tardiness, entirely mollified and leaning against the kitchen counter, smiling.  She’s also the reason why he hasn’t burned his apartment down yet whenever he tries to cook, making him stir some spaghetti lazily while she expertly flutters about the kitchen preparing whatever she’s decided she wants to have with it.  They’re sitting down at his table, steaming plates of food in front of them, what feels like two minutes later, Kai laughing at appropriate points at the long-winded university story she’s telling him.  It’s easier to let her speak, ramble on about something that becomes impossible to follow in the wake of all the tangents, because she still hasn’t quite lost the anxiety-inducing, weary look she’d adopted when dealing with him, especially when something he’s saying verges too near whatever she’s deemed dangerous. </p><p>The questions come eventually, with the autumn evening blackening rapidly into night in the window behind her, but it doesn’t feel rehearsed when he dismisses them.  Scepticism flickers in her eyes after the first couple of deflected inquisitions, a cynical glare that would’ve made a more fragile Kai berate her for not believing in him, but she must implicitly know that he’s telling the truth.  There isn’t a ball of anxiety sitting heavy in his lower stomach, no knot of fear in his throat that makes breathing so much more difficult, isn’t even some rotting remnant of the slight relapse he’d suffered in Elise’s café.  He’s sure she can hear as much in his tone. </p><p>Sometimes, the two of them can stay talking for so late they have to stay over, but Sophia says something about an early morning class the following day not long after she’s placed her knife and fork down, smiling gently as Kai takes her utensils and puts them in the washing machine.  Kai has a match anyway, and with a chaste kiss on her cheek and a casual, “see you on Sunday,” she’s out the door, and as quick as he was diverted into the café to see Julian’s family earlier, Kai’s alone again.</p><p>It could sicken him, the quiet in his flat, if he lets his mind wander back to all the pre-match nights of last season, when Julian would put him at instant ease with his presence, or a flash of a smile that would just be silent confirmation that Julian would still be there for him no matter what happened the following day.  It was those moments, that if he thought about it hard enough has the most obvious romantic undertones imaginable, that he misses with a burning passion now.  It was those moments that caused this mess, those moments that made him so fucking comfortable and basically condemned him to falling in love with someone who was so unattainable it made his heart ache, and he misses it, enough people have told him that.  It’s not the familiarity, because he’s got used to the absence, the new routine of lying awake, terrified of the heckles, the bone-deep exhaustion that plagued him and made him feel like he was running through treacle when he finally got onto the pitch.  There was just something in the way Julian smiled that made him forget who he was.  Made him forget everything aside from the fact he was in love, and he knows if the older man was to turn up on his doorstep at that precise moment, he still would be.  His throat would constrict, but not through panic; because Julian is so fucking beautiful Kai doesn’t know what to do with himself.</p><p>He wouldn’t turn up uninvited, especially not with the finality Kai presumed he must have given when the hotel room door slammed shut following his choked off phrase, but when Heike had told him the way Julian had gone so distant when telling them about the fight, the incoherent muttering Kai remembers he used to do when he was deeply upset about something, he’d been flooded with something he hadn’t been able to place at the time.  It’s only now he realises it had been <em>hope.</em></p><p>Only Julian could ever get such a meaningful reaction out of him, but he’d been so resigned to the assumption that it was one-sided, hearing the opposite had elicited some blind want.  Julian may have only told his parents about the fight a couple of days ago, but the possibilities are so tempting Kai throws himself underneath his duvet, humming to himself to drown it out.  Julian misses him as a friend, he’s known that for a while, this whole thing is nothing more than another tiny affirmation, because Julian’s actions for pretty much the past forever have pretty much confirmed that he’s never felt anything more than that.</p><p>Even so, fear of his own desires is a much nicer alternative to fears of the upcoming match, so for what feels like the first night in ages, Kai drifts off into a dreamless sleep, and actually manages to wake up a few minutes before his alarm blares loudly.</p><p>His matchday routine is such second-nature, he doesn’t pay attention as he puts his cleats and shin pads into his bag, playing some music out of his speakers to distract him from any thoughts that want to invade his mind.  It works to a somewhat decent extent, because he’s out of the house and walking to the training ground, deflecting terror like they’re defenders who particularly have it in for him.  It helps that Lotta and Mitch are there when he arrives, in a light conversation that’s thrown aside the second he joins them.</p><p>“You alright?” Mitch says, barely giving Kai time to nod before he continues, “Lotta tells me Lars is in a much better mood today.”</p><p>“That’s good,” he says quietly, the captain patrolling around the team and slapping their hands in greeting, “he was so tetchy yesterday part of me thought he was hormonal.”</p><p>The laughter they fall into is not quite loud enough to attract the attention of the staff, which is good because Bosz is beginning to speak to the group, but Kai does meet Sven’s eyes, eyebrows furrowed and slightly looking like he’s beaming x-rays into him.  The centre back is a really kind man, but he has this glower that can make him seem really intimidating, sometimes even more than his own twin.</p><p>Even with Paulinho forgetting his lucky socks, the team bus actually manages to leave Leverkusen ahead of schedule for once, and it isn’t long before the usual chatter is rising from the seats, Kai in a little four-seat section with Mitch, Lotta and Jonathan, vaguely tuning into the three of them still talking about the post-training shenanigans and mocking the way Lars stood over them, glaring.  The team are so used to him falling asleep on the journeys, which back when Julian was there used to be a curse, because his former best friend was always down to prank Kai or slap him to wake him up or whatever stupid suggestion some random person gave, but since, there hasn’t been any of it.  He stifles a bitter laugh at the thought that they may have been too apprehensive to risk it, fearful of the snap in his reaction.</p><p>It’s a comfort now, because he can recline his chair, plug his earphones in and drift off into a relatively undisturbed sleep.  Wolfsburg is one of their longest bus journeys, so Kai isn’t surprised when the noise he can hear when he shifts into semi-consciousness on occasion eventually dies, most of the team following his lead and resting.  Without the throttling worry of the possibilities of the match attacking him, it’s pretty peaceful inside the whirling white fog in Kai’s head.</p><p>He wonders if there’s some kind of synaesthesia association, whether it would stain a beautiful dark purple for Sophia, and pink or yellow or whatever he would choose for Julian, or maybe blue, like those stupid fucking eyes of his (his stomach crunches, and he’s not sure if it’s a cringe or a pang of affection).  That would be beautiful, if he could assign a colour to the people that he cares about most in the world, and when his mind is blank, for it all to fade to white again.</p><p>The thought calms him so much that his body feels weighed down by thick blocks of lead in his blood when the bus finally pulls up in Wolfsburg late-afternoon.  Mitch’s eyes fly open the second the gentle vibrations stop, arms flying out wide and clobbering Lotta right in the face which at least causes Kai to laugh hard enough to get some feeling back into his own muscles.  Lotta, however, looks less disconcerted and more fuming, bristling indiscreetly in Mitch’s direction as he pulls his bag down from the overhead compartment, pointedly ignoring her attempts at provocation.</p><p>“Leave it,” Kai says through his laughter, “Mitch is the most oblivious person in the world.”</p><p>He expects Lotta to throw some comment back agreeing with him, or maybe simply huff a laugh because the two of them had formed some sort of society in insulting Mitch, but she doesn’t.  She merely raises her eyebrows at him, mutters something inaudible, and when Kai’s eyes find him, he notices Jonathan standing, a little shifty, and gesturing at her.</p><p>“What?” He says, loud enough to cause a couple of the others to look at him, “what am I missing?”</p><p>“Don’t worry,” Lotta says, not meeting his eyes and therefore eliciting the exact response she instructed against.  “Just, um, a little weird to be insulting Mitch when he isn’t listening.  Takes the fun out of it, you know?”</p><p>He’s about to rebut her with all the times they’ve creased laughing about their older friend in her office after practice, on days when the pain was a little less prominent, and panic attacks were a little further from his thoughts, but she’s halfway down the aisle before he can find the words to begin his sentence.  The thing is, it felt personal, rich, as if he’d insulted Mitch for something of which he was also guilty.</p><p>It takes him an embarrassingly long time to realise that they probably do think that, are most likely of the opinion that he’d been oblivious to something to do with Julian.  Most ironically of all, if they think his former best friend has feelings, they’re the most oblivious people Kai’s ever known.  He left because he didn’t.  Kai was so torn up because he did.</p><p>“Are you coming, or are you planning on listening to the game going on in the stadium from the bus?” Lars jokes, passing down the aisle, and only then does Kai realise he’s standing, practically frozen, while everyone else has left, heading in past the crowds of waiting fans bedecked in green. </p><p>“Shit, yeah, sorry, just a little tired,” he forces a smile, almost drops his bag on his head, and leads his captain out of the bus, waving at the children who start yelling his name frantically the moment he appears in eyesight.  He just tries not to think of Julian, coming to this stadium as a teenager in the academy, once wearing on of the same shirts he sees on fans now.</p><p>That’s when he remembers the reason why Julian left, and he’s suddenly very tempted to turn back to Lars and tell him that he does, in fact, want to listen to the game from outside.  Because fuck knows if Noah’s going to be watching him from the stands, glimmering with a secret he doesn’t know Kai wishes to be true.  But he can’t, he has to steel himself and pass through the doors flanked by security who flash polite smiles at him and try to ignore where he is.  It’s excruciating, the fear of the crowd he’d managed to dispel over the past couple of days being flung back at him with extra vengeance now he remembers what he’s got to be afraid of, slapping him with every step he takes through the corridors painted a repulsive shade of sickly green.</p><p>Thinking of Lars’ eyes burning into the back of his head is enough to force him to stay upright as he pushes through the door to the locker room, greeted by the usual hollering as the team make themselves at home, Jonathan up to his usual antics and pinning a black-and-red Bayer flag up on one wall.  If any of the team are also feeling the lethargy from the long journey, they aren’t showing it, and judging from the height on the leap Daley gets from where he’s jumping around for no apparent reason, he’s attached springs to the bottom of his feet.</p><p>“What the hell, Sinkgraven?” Lars scolds loudly, shunning the noise, “the last thing we need is for you to risk injuring yourself before the match! Now, Kai, if you wouldn’t mind moving, I’d like to get to my seat.”</p><p>It’s only when half the team turn to look at him does Kai realise that he’s stopped awkwardly in the centre of the room, as if he was some kind of shitty wind-up toy that had run out of whip.  That’d be easier than this, being a non-sentient entity, operating robotically on the whim of others, unaware that his current situation, preparing for what feels like slaughter in front of thirty-thousand people, even exists.  He’s never been so relieved when Bosz silences them all, voice filling the room as he runs through the tactics in detail, and for the first time since he was a newly fledged senior, Kai actually clings on to every word the coach says, even the parts that don’t concern him at all.  Because if he does, draws the outline of the words in his mind, he isn’t thinking about anything that might lie in wait for him when he emerges from the bowels of the stadium.</p><p>His cheeks flush pink when the coach taps him on the shoulder while he’s pulling his shorts on, sitting down in the empty place next to him and eyeing him suspiciously.</p><p>“Can I help you?” He says eventually, when the expectancy in Bosz’s face becomes overbearing.  If his voice wavers, he’s hoping the noise in the room is enough to mask it.</p><p>“Yes, you can,” Bosz murmurs, obvious his words are for Kai’s ears only, “what’s going on with you now?  You’ve never paid that much attention to me in a pre-match team talk, you were even completely alert when I was telling Lukas his usual reminders.  If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought you were doing it to avoid hearing your own thoughts.”</p><p>A chill runs over Kai’s skin and he’s only able to catch the shiver by quickly yanking his undershirt on, taking a lot more time on the shirt engraved with his own name, because Bosz has hit the nail on the head with pinpoint accuracy but Kai still can’t tell him everything.</p><p>“This isn’t still about Julian, is it?”</p><p>“No,” he says, maybe too quickly, but at least it’s the truth.  “It’s just, obviously the fans haven’t been giving me the easiest of times recently---,”</p><p>“And you’re nervous to face them again, right?”</p><p>It’s not completely a lie, they’ve had countless conversations about not letting the heckling that seems to be getting louder with each passing match impact him too much, and it’s much easier to let his coach believe that than reveal Julian’s past and let the whole truth fall out of his mouth.  No one else in the room was ever told the reason behind the sudden arrival, and what he doesn’t need is Julian storming around to his flat to berate him for letting the secret slip.</p><p>“I gave a press conference yesterday, I don’t know whether you saw it,” Bosz laughs slightly, probably thinking of that time he randomly decided to quiz the team on things he’d said in a previous day conference and being met by an almost total blank from the team (aside from Lars, who watches them religiously).  “But I reminded the fans that we are a Bayer Leverkusen family, and families don’t treat their members like that.  I hope they listened to me.”</p><p>“I hope so too,” he says weakly.</p><p>“I guess we’ll see.  But in the meantime, you just play the best you can, because you know we play better as a collective when you’re on your game.”</p><p>Kai’s response is simply gaping as his coach ups and walks towards some of the others, slapping their hands.  It’s scary, being in the catacombs, because it’s like he can feel every individual fan climbing into their seat, chattering excitedly about how Wolfsburg are going to annihilate them.  With every new person, his worry triples, until he’s holding so much on his shoulders, he’s sure the bones are going to snap in seconds.</p><p>When the call for the warm-up finally comes, he feels as if he’s going to collapse under the sculpture of hell piled upon him.  His head hunches down against the invisible ceramic, back straining with such a vicious intensity he almost yelps, teeth churning and gritting uncomfortably as he follows Sven out of the door, up the entrance to the field.</p><p>It doesn’t relax him, because the arena is barely half-full, and the grass underneath his cleats is doing nothing to erode the stone.  He wonders if the fans of either side have noticed him yet, spotted the weakness that must be cursing his face, homed in on the target of insult they have in common. </p><p>Like he did in the locker room, by focusing exclusively on the orders Bosz is barking at them as he passes the ball back to Mitch, he can sort of tune out the criticisms floating down towards him.  The travelling fans have clocked him, he sees a few hardened gazes when he’s stupid enough to shoot a look over at them, crammed up in a corner of the stadium.  The cheer for his name is way quieter than he’s gotten used to and trying to convince himself to not be hurt by it is about the most successful way of ensuring he doesn’t get hurt by it.</p><p>The weight doesn’t shed itself as he slots a shot neatly past Lukas.  The ball against his foot doesn’t feel natural, like there’s something on his ankle that’s repelling it.  Assuming every eye is trained on him alone would be levels of arrogance he’s only ever shown in front of Sophia and Julian, right before they’d bring him back down to earth with some sharp chastise, but right there, with neither of them with him to remind him otherwise, it fucking well feels like it.  He misses his next two attempts on goal.</p><p>“Focus, Kai,” Bosz grits out as Kai passes to re-enter the locker room when the warmup ends all too soon.  Part of him wants to snap back, inform his coach of the mound of rock rendering him practically useless, but he can’t find the words.  His tongue bleeds again from where he bites it.</p><p>He tries to revert to the cinematic state, the version of himself where he doesn’t really feel anything, just watches it all happen blindly.  It might work, or maybe he’s so anxious he’s missing minutes from his own distraction, so much so that even the little mascot’s hand in his own can’t pull him out of it.  It’s not like Elias, the memory of him still strong and agonising in his mind, he just whispers a hello and tries not to make the kid feel too embarrassed about how sweaty his hand is.</p><p>Before he has chance to find himself, he’s out on the pitch in front of thousands, probably double the amount that were there even five minutes ago.  Flags soar over the fans’ faces, make them deindividuated that Kai couldn’t identify a face if he tried.  There isn’t much else before the game commences.</p><p>Instantly, he’s overcome with a feeling of impending dread, the kind that chokes him with such brutality he’s almost ready to become probably the fastest ever substitute in Bundesliga history.  The onset is so sudden and so merciless that it actually causes the surroundings to swim in his consciousness, the grass and the colour of the fans’ shirts merging into one big indecipherable blob of green, his own teammates little black specks in the concoction, but the second the ball is passed to him, finding the inside of his foot with what’s probably more sheer luck than any actual skill, the impact knocks a little bit of the stone from his shoulders.  It falls away with an inaudible smash.</p><p>The ball, the instinct to drive forward and find a pass that has become so learned he doesn’t have to think about it anymore, it grapples with the nesting seeds of doubt.  With every second his skill doesn’t relinquish the battle, another hunk of marble falls away, and he can run a little straighter, lift his head a little higher and eventually spots Charles sprinting down the right wing.</p><p>His pass reaching the feet of his teammate gives him the strength to hurl the final remains of the carcass of pressure that had slung its unwanted body over him.  There’s a crick in his neck when he gets free, but he isn’t sure if he’s imagining it.</p><p>Charles is orchestrating the first attack, nimbly passing the Wolfsburg left back and cutting inside, but before he can get a shot away, the centre back tackles him and suddenly, Kai finds himself sprinting towards the player he’s supposed to be marking during the defensive work.  He’s quick, and Kai’s body is still doused with the lead that forced him to work in the annoying mechanical way, and when the player gets the ball, Kai curses loudly, trying to chase him down.</p><p>He doesn’t make it, and Jonathan has to slide in as a last resort, resorting to taking him out completely; Kai can hear the Wolfsburg players, spurred on by the angry yells of the fans, protesting for the free kick.  If he was watching this at home, he knows the commentators would be reciting some learned spiel about the defenders stamping their authority on the game from the get-go, but he couldn’t be further away from curled up on his sofa, lazily watching the sport he loves so much.</p><p>He turns around, away from the protests which are beginning to mount in fury (the kind of thing they normally see when they’ve been playing for eighty minutes and it’s been fraught the entire time) and he regrets it instantly.</p><p>His own fans are whistling, and the second they spot his attention, they surge, straining against the barriers from their seats, resembling a pack of snakes spitting venom at him.  His skin prickles underneath the collar of his shirt.</p><p>They didn’t listen to Bosz’s pleas, if he actually said them.  Kai didn’t bother to check.  They don’t love him really, they might have hero-worshipped him before but now they believe it was all Julian’s making, that is former best friend was a shield and now he’s defenceless.</p><p>Part of him wants to ask Julian if he ever felt Kai overshadowed him, but he doesn’t think he could bring himself to hear the answer.</p><p>“Kai, I thought we were fucking past this,” Lars whispers, hand pinching the nape of his neck in a way that’s designed to hurt, “stop wandering around aimlessly, and start playing fucking football.”</p><p>He adds his captain’s name to the list of people he’s sure despise him.  In a bid to rectify his initial uselessness, he stays practically glued to his marker whenever Wolfsburg gain possession, clattering into him on a couple of occasions and trying to ignore the taunts he receives, the stubborn, pissed-off utterances of, “why the fuck is your game plan to get me sent off, cheating cunts?”</p><p>The player’s voice, another insult laced with expletive that’s going to earn a warning from the referee if he hears it, floats in the air after him when he steals the ball around twenty minutes in, charging upfield and nutmegging one of the onrushing defenders.  There’s muted applause, his fans seem resigned to only acknowledging his presence when they have to---,</p><p>His pass finds Nadiem’s feet, who’s just weaving into the box, Kai can see the goalkeeper steeling in anticipation of the shot, but it doesn’t come.  He’s tackled, the ball rolling in Kai’s direction and he’s just gaining speed when the Wolfsburg right back snatches it, running directly into Karim who dispossesses him, a little frantic in nature, before the attacker weaves forward expertly and lobs the ball into the back of the net.</p><p>Last season, when the club was on that roll that just seemed like it would never end, a rollercoaster of an upward spiral with Julian in the middle that left Kai giddy, every time they would score he’d be filled with joyous rapture.  On the first day of the season, when he scored in front of the home crowd and heard them all singing his name, it had felt just like before, and he’d been foolish enough to believe that was it, that everything was still going to be okay even though Julian had gone.  Since then, the colour has bleached out of his life like he’s been whirling around a washing machine with the water set to flame, and the flashes of happiness that Hans has helped him find don’t stay long.  When he’s not playing, he can relax into the feeling of progressing, getting better, because he can let that happen when he forgets everyone that he relied on now hates him.</p><p>There’s an ashen taste in his mouth when he joins the group hug.</p><p>“---good goal,” he hears Lars say over the euphoric roars, a hand that must be Mitch’s squeezing his waist in silent reassurance, even though he can’t see his closest friend through the mass of bodies.  “Stick to our tactics, keep possession, and another goal will come.”</p><p>Kai intercepts the kick-off pass, immediately charging down the distance to the opposition’s goal, looking no higher than the waistline of the defenders surging towards him.  The heckles from the Wolfsburg fans grow louder, the cacophony rising as Kai carries on his run, managing to turn the first defender that attempts a challenge on him, feeling almost like his old self as he navigates through the space. </p><p>It’s risky with the positioning of the defenders, but he can see their weight, knows that if he plays it right, he can trap the ball behind their eyeline and into Kevin’s path.   He doesn’t waste another second considering.</p><p>To him, the ball might as well roll in slow motion, there’s a horrifying moment he’s sure one of the centre backs is going to reach it and snuff out the attack, but then it reaches Kevin, the striker almost tripping over as he attempts to balance his frame with the ball, but then he’s firing a shot that needs a fingertip save to prevent an immediate second goal.  The away fans are hollering down from their position at the other end of the field.</p><p>The corner is cleared when Kai’s head is inches away from connecting with it, body flinging forwards to try and flick the ball into the goal, and his lungs are burning with the exertion of trying to get back down the pitch to defend, which they somehow manage to do as a team, falling over each other because finding their formation is way harder when they’re trying to deal with a tricky attacker weaving through the lines.</p><p>He never gets used to the thrill of a game, the part that he’d give anything to experience forever.  He first felt it as a six-year-old, racing around his back garden with Jan as a defender, probably winding up the entire street with his obnoxious crowing whenever he managed to make it past him.  In the youth teams, when they’d excessively celebrate goals in the mini leagues like they’d scored the winner in the Champions League final, that rush had been a permanent presence he never tired of, and it would still be now if it wasn’t for the yells that taint it.</p><p>The defenders are lazily passing it around the back, the opening tension long subdued.  Not a lot else happens, any attack from either side easily sparked out as the minutes tick past, more quickly now Kai resigns himself to a gentle jog to keep the blood flowing to his legs.  The back of his mouth still tastes funny, and with every minute he’s spared of disaster, the sense of something imminently going wrong rises.</p><p>He tries to ignore it, but it’s malformed into a hooded figure, rising threateningly into the blackening sky.  Nothing could make it clearer, he’s cursed for downfall and he just wants it to happen, because being held in limbo is horrific.</p><p>Leverkusen decide to form one final attack as the clock on the big screen nears halftime, Mitch playing it across the field towards Kai, who starts to run forward, flicking his eyes up.</p><p>The only image he’s seen of <em>his </em>face was that Instagram profile picture, but he sees it reflected in the face of everyone in the stands.  They all bear it, the malicious grin chock-full of malintent, the accusations splayed across the advertisement boards, a vicious typewriter noise clicking in his mind.  Noah.  He’s waiting for his moment to strike.</p><p>It throws Kai into turmoil, he forgets what he’s doing, limbs feeling like they’ve switched places, right as the defender ploughs into him and the next thing he feels is his head whack against the turf, but he doesn’t have time to dwell on it because of the searing pain reverberating from his ankle.</p><p>He lies there in silence for a moment, hand feeling around the injured area and wincing at a sting that implies blood and, voice trembling, whispers, “fuck.”</p><p>“What was that, Kai?” Mitch says, Kai not even realising he’d got there.  He can’t make his voice go any louder than a pained whisper, agony flooding through him as he clutches the injury, so the words fall out of his mouth as incoherent vomit,</p><p>“Get the medical staff, fuck, please.”</p><p>There’s pitiful, endless silence, the noise of the crowd has dissipated inside his mind, if it was even there in the first place.  He’s aware of the other players patrolling around him, only because every step they take amplifies the pain rattling inside his head, or maybe it’s just displacing it from his ankle – either way, he wants to scream bloody murder and can’t manage much more than a hapless yelp.</p><p>He starts when he feels hands on his skin.  They burn taunts into it, insults about him being weak, useless, that this injury is a blessing in disguise to the team who don’t need him.</p><p>Groaning, he lets the medical team roll him onto his back, squinting against the floodlights that burn into his eyes.  He wants to scratch his thoughts into a deep red gash on his arm, an undesirable tattoo that won’t let him forget how much he hates being famous, how it has sucked all the life out of what he loves to do.</p><p>God, he wishes he could speak to Hans.</p><p>“Can you stand?” One of the doctors says to him.  Clambering to his feet is more of a battle than the past forty-five minutes combined has been, and his stomach rolls alongside his ankle when he finally stands, almost crumbling back down to the floor if it wasn’t for the iron grip of the medics.  “Just hobble off the pitch,” one of them mutters in his ear, “we’ll have a wheelchair ready when we get to the dressing room.”</p><p>Every step is deathly agony, but he can’t let them see it in his face.  If he tries hard enough, he can conjure a mirage of Julian a few feet away from him out of the night light, feels his body automatically pull together the bricks and mortar of the wall only Julian can cause, and the ghostlike form of his former best friend last long enough to get Kai out of public eyesight.</p><p>“Fuck!” He yells, once there isn’t anyone around to judge him, “fucking, fuck, this hurt--,”</p><p>“Take this,” the medic that rolled him onto his back earlier says in a low voice, passing him a couple of nondescript tablets and his water bottle as he’s assisted into the waiting chair.  He almost throws them back up before they’re down, writhing from the prodding that has begun on his ankle.  Pain flickers through his body, he can’t focus to listen what the team are muttering to each other, but he comes to himself just long enough to hear the word, “hospital.”</p><p>“No,” he groans, wondering if they can understand him through the water that’s infiltrated his lungs, his voice box, cutting him off and leaving him stranded with nothing but his agony, “I don’t need to go to the---,”</p><p>“Don’t tense, Kai, it’ll only make it worse,” someone else says to his knee, swarming the epicentre of the hurt with fingers that feel as though they’re made of the sharpest pincers.  Tears prick at the corners of his eyes.  “You shouldn’t be in the hospital for long, you’ll just need an MRI so we can work out what’s wrong and then we’ll have a car to take you home.”</p><p>Lotta appears then, blonde hair falling messily in her eyes, her hand missing the chunks falling out of her ponytail, “how are you, Kai?”</p><p>“Shit.  I’ve got to go to the hospital.”</p><p>“Fuck,” she swears, apologising instantly as one of the senior media team members passes by, glowering at her, “um, if you have to withdraw from the break, let me know.  I’ll make sure the message gets to Sophia and the others before the public find out.”</p><p>His phone’s in his bag, which is currently in the hands of the team doctor, and he can only imagine the texts Sophia will be spamming him with if she’s watching the match.  If he can try to focus on that, instead of the reminder that he’s going to miss the break and that can only spell trouble because of what people are going to assume, it at least might stop him from throwing up properly.</p><p>Meeting up with the national team hadn’t crossed his mind, and even though he’d spent the last week openly dreading it, disappointment still flares in him.  Maybe it’s simply a mockery, all the negative emotions multiplying just to lay themselves over him like a blanket embedded with shards of glass, impaling his skin just enough to bleed blood that stings him.</p><p>“Car’s here,” the team doctor whispers to him as he tries to avoid his teammates’ sympathetic glances, “I don’t think you’ll be wanting to stick around.”</p><p>“No,” he slurs back, feeling inexplicably drowsy in spite of the throbs emanating from his ankle as he’s wheeled out of the room.  The wheels rattle melodically along the corridor as the white fog of his mind becomes thicker, dense in a way that suffocates him painlessly, and although it might conceal a horror a more alert version of him would fight, its wisps calm him, his head rolls back until his entire body is claimed by the mist.</p><p>When he wakes up, he tries to open his eyes, but all he’s met by is blackness, and it takes him a terrifying few moments to realise he’s got an eye mask on, and the slow, periodic beeping he can just about hear over the monotonous classical music is that of an MRI machine.  The medical team have put some headphones over his ears, neck supported by a soft pillow, but the first rule of an MRI is that he’s not allowed to move.  There’ll probably be a reaction akin to a bomb explosion if he so much as moves an inch.</p><p>The next thing he’s aware of is the painkillers aren’t doing their job properly.  He wants to wince, or maybe cry out and get someone’s attention so they can get him out of this airless machine, but no sound comes out of his mouth when he opens it desperately.  It only adds to the silence outside of the headphones and the beeping, that has become incredibly annoying in the one minute he’s been consciousness.</p><p>Maybe someone whacks his head with a giant frying pan, because he falls back into unconsciousness before he can form another thought.</p><p>“He’s coming around,” someone says, sounding for all the world excited, the next time Kai’s aware of what’s going on.  His back is aching from where he’s been crammed into a too-small chair, chin practically resting on his knees which have been forced up in some tragic attempt to put him into a ball, and as his eyes open, blinking rapidly, he almost falls off said chair in disorientation.</p><p>The sweet recluse of alcohol would probably be the worst possible idea for him at that moment, but he couldn’t think of anything he wants more.  To fall into a sense of self-inflicted disillusion, blood running warmly through his veins as neon lights flicker and merge in his line of sight, such sensation would be welcome.  Rather than this, awaking in a strange hospital in a room that resembles the one of his therapist’s, with god knows what drugs in his system that might cause him to spill out everything, and feeling as though he’s a million miles from home.</p><p>A buzzing noise infiltrates his head as his eyes close again, arm shooting out mindlessly to rid his body of the swarm of bees whose location is indeterminable, but he never finds them.  All he’s met with is someone lacing their fingers in his own, a rough, calloused hand, and no affection.</p><p>“Come on, Mr Havertz,” an unfamiliar voice says, and Kai’s body braces like it does before an important penalty, “the sooner you wake up, the sooner we can let you go.”</p><p>Words mean nothing to him, he couldn’t form them if he tried, he thinks, but the thought of <em>home</em>, of his own bedsheets and locking the front door from the perils of the world that seem particularly tailored to hurt him sounds about as good as it could get for him right now.  So, he does, he opens his eyes again, and this time actually fights to keep it that way.</p><p>“Ah,” the same voice says, an older gentleman, with a strained smile.  Blearily, Kai can make out several black-and-white printouts which he presumes must be of his leg.  Some of the club staff are there too, and Lotta, and he’s just about to ask her what she’s doing when the doctor speaks again, “you’ve ruptured a ligament in your ankle, and another one in your thigh.”</p><p>“Oh,” he says, craning his neck to look as though he’s paying attention to the diagrams, and hoping that they cannot see the way his eyes tingle threateningly.  The moonlight pouring through the window is far too bright, the complete antagonist to his mood, he just wants to stop the fucking shining and beautiful glimmer casting shadows over the room.  He wants unforgiving blackness and harsh, sterile light.  “How long am I going to be out for?”</p><p>“I think your team doctor is still deciding, but my guess would be about four weeks.”</p><p>“You won’t be going to the international break, if that’s what you’re asking about,” the doctor, who’d been silent earlier, finally speaks, “one of the others is off making the call to Lӧw right now.”</p><p>It’s as if he’d been spliced in half, one side exploding in a barrage of angry red sparks that set him on edge, while the other droops in overwhelming indifference, and the most worrying of all is he cannot choose a side to support.  The opposites collide, pulled together by magnetic forces and their interlocking elicits the most agonising sense imaginable, but all he can do is choke out an “okay,” and look expectantly at the main doctor.</p><p>“If you look under your trousers, you’ll notice we’ve already put you into a compression strap, and you’ll be wheeled to the car that we believe is waiting for you.”</p><p>“I’m coming back with you, Kai,” Lotta says, a little shyly, as if she’s not sure it’s acceptable for her voice to be heard.  He hopes the smile he gives her doesn’t look fake.</p><p>“Anything else?”</p><p>“Not now, it’ll all be told to you in due course, I’m sure,” the doctor says, gesturing vaguely into the distance.  “Given we have already completed all the necessary checks and informed your local hospital, you are free to go.”</p><p>“Oh, um, thanks,” he says, almost laughing at the irony of being dragged out of the room backwards by one of the medical staff, watching as the doctor gets smaller and smaller until he’s out of sight entirely.  Lotta’s walking alongside, murmuring to herself, nails tapping incessantly on her phone.</p><p>“Sophia,” she says, when she catches Kai staring, “she’s out of her mind worried.  Pretty mad that you weren’t texting her back, either, until I told her you passed out before you’d even left the stadium.”</p><p>“Oh god,” he groans, “she’s probably spammed me with texts.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t be surprised.”</p><p>“Hey, um, Lotta,” he says, dropping his voice all of a sudden as they enter the elevator, “did we win?”</p><p>“Yeah, 2-0.  Paulinho scored in the final minute.”</p><p>“He didn’t dedicate his celebration to Sophia, did he?”</p><p>Lotta looks torn between aghast and amused, “I don’t think he did--- oh, here’s our car.”</p><p>He finally gets his phone back when he climbs into the backseat, Lotta doing all the social malarkey with the driver, and he’s just about to open and read through the minimum-of-one-hundred texts from Sophia when his phone vibrates again, and his heart twists painfully in his chest.</p><p><strong>Julian: </strong>I’m really sorry to hear you got injured and are going to miss the break.</p><p><strong>Julian: </strong>I’m going to miss you so much.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em><strong>leverkusen, germany (the following monday)</strong> </em>
</p><p>“How long are they making you stay for?” He asks Sophia as she turns off the main road, heading towards the training complex.</p><p>“All day,” she grumbles, looking more than a little pissed off about the arrangement her university has decided on, “that’s why I’m driving.  I didn’t want to cycle home in the dark at god knows what time this evening.”</p><p>“Fair enough,” he trails off, sticking his head out of the window to inform the security guards of his arrival and allow Sophia’s car into the facility, “thank you for giving me the lift anyway.”</p><p>“Better than you driving with your leg in that state.  Lotta said she’ll drop you home.”</p><p>“You’re the best,” he places a kiss on her cheek, “have fun.”</p><p>“You too, text me how it goes,” he just about catches as he climbs out of the car, grabbing his bag from the boot and watching his friend drive off in the direction of her university.  He can’t stop himself from dwelling over the expression she was trying to keep off her face the entire journey, voice going ever thicker each time an excited lilt would make its way into her tone, not to mention the suspicious way she rang him at six in the morning and told him she would be driving him to his first rehab session.</p><p>The sun is hidden behind a thick blanket of white cloud, streams of light bursting through but doing nothing to counteract the harsh November wind that seems a lot stronger than it did even last week, the trees lining the complex beginning to lose their leaves, auburn stains littering the floor.  He shivers involuntarily, perhaps a mix of the cold and a fear of what the doctors are going to do to him the second he steps into the rehab section of the complex.</p><p>He misses the fingerprint pad the first time he reaches out for it.</p><p>“Morning, Kai!” Lotta says brightly, before the door has even fallen shut behind him.  The sunny nature of her only continually darkens his mood, eyes scanning the almost deserted corridor for any sign of the others; but there isn’t anyone.  Half the team have jetted off all over the continent to meet up with their national teams, and the others are enjoying the last of their off days before they return to training tomorrow.  It’s just Kai, forced to suffer the sorrowful comments of the staff, here alone, ready to have his ankle put into deeper pain than it was when the Wolfsburg defender clattered into him.</p><p>“Morning,” he grunts back, “where am I going?”</p><p>“Rehab room,” she answers nonplussed, pointing to one of the doors about three-quarters of the way down, “don’t worry, you’re not going to be by yourself.  Lars got injured in the second half of the same game, so he’ll be there as well.”</p><p>“Brilliant.” His voice says anything but.  “Sophia said you’re going to drive me home after?”</p><p>“That’s the plan,” she obviously senses he doesn’t want to talk anymore, despite the bright grin that’s almost the spitting image of the one Sophia was trying to conceal earlier, graciously accepting his quiet thanks, “I’ll leave you to it.  Bosz told me to remind you that you can drop your stuff in the normal changing room.”</p><p>“See you,” he mutters to her blonde hair, punching in the code for the first team dressing room and throwing his bag down in his space.  Deep down, he’s glad Lars is going to be being wrangled by the physios alongside him, maybe they can listen to each other’s screams as some sort of sick team bonding activity, but he also just wants to be alone inside his own head and let any pain he feels be excused as being down to the treatment.  Lars is so damn talkative, that will never happen with him there, especially not since he’s convinced his captain’s going to still be on the warpath of tracking down and enhancing his knowledge of the cause of Kai’s emotional inconsistency like he has been for the past few months.</p><p>Kai’s fed up of the hide-and-seek and makes a resigned mental note to just fucking tell him whatever he asks.</p><p>The swelling on his ankle still hasn’t gone down, and his thigh is covered in angry red welts he isn’t entirely sure the cause of (ever since the doctor mentioned the strains in his thigh, it’s been giving him as much grief as his ankle, and past of him wants to punch the guy for removing him from his state of blissful ignorance), and they both protest painfully when he reaches down, trying to pull his shoes on.  The loose shorts he’s been forced to wear flutter around the injured muscle.</p><p>“You’re here!” One of the physios says, sounding, just like Lotta, far too happy for a Monday morning.  He’s half-tempted to snap and demand to know what’s going on, why they all seem like they’ve just won the Bundesliga and the lottery on the same day, but if he’s told, he’s going to have to act like he’s just as joyous, and he couldn’t give less of a fuck about pretending to be happy right then.  “Come on, we’re all waiting for you!”</p><p>The overexcited physio talks his ear off the whole way to the treatment room, seemingly unaware to just how much he’s pissing Kai off and the stabbing pain sparking from his ankle every time he takes a step.  Kai’s just working out how to politely tell the guy to shut the fuck up when the door swings open and he’s greeted by the senior physio, who takes Kai’s weight easily and helps him hobble to one of the two beds, the other occupied by Lars.</p><p>“Okay, Kai, we’re just going to do some exercises before we go to the gym and do some weights. We’ll talk you through it if you want, and if you need anything, just look at us and we’ll take off our earphones.”</p><p>“Why are you wearing them?”</p><p>“They’re noise-cancelling,” the other physio explains, “we decided to invest in them after Leon nearly caused us lifelong deafness from his yelling.  We’ve become experts in lip-reading since.”</p><p>On the opposite bed, Lars snorts, and even in spite of his foul mood, Kai can’t help but smile at that.</p><p>“So, are we clear?”</p><p>“Yeah, I guess.  I’ll yelp extra loud if you don’t respond to me,” he tries to joke but he’s still a little hurt from the apparent secret dealings that everyone’s got so fucking giddy over, and it comes out a bit thicker than intended.  He can see it, the concern flickering in the head physio’s eyes, the way the relaxed smile has become taught with awkwardness, and he hates himself so much he squeezes his own eyes shut to avoid it.  At least this way he can’t see the way Lars has probably reacted as well.</p><p>“Okay, we’re going to start by putting your thigh on a muscle roller,” the same man says to Kai, unceremoniously stuffing the cylindrical foam underneath him and beginning to move it along the underside of Kai’s leg, despite the significant wince of agony Kai’s body convulses into.  His eyes fly open of their own accord, to be met by the piercing white square lights beating down from the ceiling.</p><p>His eyes burn, but he keeps staring.  It so much resembles the sun he felt on his skin during the short walk from the car park this morning, the seasonal silvery-white glow that spelled both hope and the essence of the bleak midwinter, casting beauty to Kai’s unfeeling persona.</p><p>The light swims in his eyes, and it’s only when his physio rips his earphones off in panic and starts questioning him, does he realise he’d stared so long it had caused his eyes to water.</p><p>“Oh, no, I just forgot to blink,” he says, not caring it makes him sound a little psychopathic, “but you don’t need to talk me through everything, please.  Surprise me with your worst.”</p><p>“If you wish,” the head physio smiles, placing the earphones back in and moving the roller to the upper side of Kai’s thigh.  Silence falls about the room, and it’s only then does Kai notice Lars’ physio isn’t muttering information to the captain, merely shifting about with various equipment as he works on the older man’s ankle.</p><p>“You know, I wouldn’t ask for their worst,” Lars says, shocking Kai out of his observant trance.  He can’t move to look at the captain, but he can hear the smile, the slight thing that sounds almost like wistfulness, coming through in the little laugh he huffs, “I know you’ve never had physio with these guys, but I have.  Don’t ask for their worst, you might not survive.”</p><p>“It can’t be that bad.”</p><p>“I am not a flexible man, but I swear to god they’d pulled my leg so far up I was doing some kind of upside-down split.” His captain sounds so affronted, and a combination of that and the mental image of Lars doing a split while the physio looks completely unbothered about the unnatural position is enough to set him off into fits of giggles, rocking so hard the physio loses grip on the muscle roller and eyes him angrily.</p><p>“Sorry,” he mouths a little exaggerated, and then to Lars, “my thigh is injured, I hope they won’t be doing that to me.”</p><p>“I mean, you did ask for it.”</p><p>“I take it back.”</p><p>Lars laughs, Kai can hear him shuffle on the next bed, the conversation dying, and Kai isn’t sure if he should be relieved or not.  With every second Lars speaks, the closer he could come to asking Kai something he isn’t sure he won’t spill the answer to, especially not since the resolute reluctance that washed over him in the locker room, so in that regard the silence is welcome.  But, without anything to distract him from the attacks of both the muscle roller (and whatever else is underneath the bed that Kai didn’t bother checking before he clambered on), and his own mind, he’s a defenceless castle manned by inadequate soldiers.</p><p>Since the two texts buzzed into his phone on Friday night, Julian’s words have been drifting into his mind on a semi-regular basis, taunting him with their connotation and potential to mean nothing more than a polite sentiment.  It doesn’t add up, the way Julian addressed him with vicious anger unhidden in his body language the final night in Tallinn a month ago suddenly melting away to an endearing message of goodwill.</p><p>It’s Kai levels of not making any fucking sense.</p><p>Perhaps it was mocking, designed to remind Kai that he wouldn’t be there all over again, perhaps Julian was still angry and was utilising the blatant opportunity to get one over on Kai when he was most vulnerable.  It would be cowardly, but expertly planned; he’s sure his former best friend would remember the way his eyes would go glassy on nights when they’d sit up and discuss their ambition until the sun dawned on the horizon.  Using that as a weapon would be so personal and so perfectly placed to cut him and his childish hope open.</p><p>Julian already did that when he left, but now he’s got a scalpel and is working his way deep into the mess of bloody cuts littered across Kai’s skin.  That’s what Kai detests most, how naïve he was to give his trust to someone who was only going to manipulate it to break his heart.</p><p>Maybe that wasn’t his former best friend’s initial intention.  Maybe there had been honesty there, Kai wasn’t duped into thinking there was genuine friendship, but Julian must have figured out how he felt, and then decided to shatter him in the cruellest way comprehendible.</p><p>He isn’t sure what causes the cry he lets out.</p><p>Silence fills the room for a few long seconds, just long enough for Kai to start believing that Lars was either in his own world or maybe even asleep, either way, that he didn’t hear it.  Relief conquers him, he can hear his physio mutter approving words as he jabs into Kai’s pliant ankle, until it’s acidified by his captain’s voice,</p><p>“Uh, Kai?  Are you okay?”</p><p>“Yeah,” his teeth grit, morphing into something gravelly and rich with hurt, “this shit just really fucking hurts.”</p><p>“Yeah,” the captain sounds entirely unconvinced, “what he’s doing to you isn’t even that bad, Kai, trust me.”</p><p>Kai’s poised on a scathing reply, maybe with fear laid on thick just to guilt-trip the older man, but when he actually pays a slight bit of attention to the physio, he notices the guy isn’t even touching him, instead rifling down underneath the bedframe for something.  Kai had been too lost in his own thoughts to notice his absence.</p><p>“You don’t believe me then.”</p><p>“No, or maybe I just don’t want to because I’m still set on trying to worm detail out of you so I can help you.”</p><p>“I mean, I suppose you have a right to know what’s going on and if I don’t get any better Lotta says she’ll tell you anyway.”</p><p>“Lotta knows?  As in, Miss Schneider, the media---,”</p><p>“Yeah, her,” he interrupts, a little confused at Lars’ shock, “we’re very close actually.”</p><p>“Well I knew that bit, but I never thought she’d actually be more involved in your life than just a friendly face at the training ground, and incredibly good at every single video game.”</p><p>“You’re not still bitter about that, are you?” He says, faking a smile just to see if it’ll work in getting Lars off the topic so he doesn’t have to fulfil the promise of spilling everything he made to himself.</p><p>“I will always be bitter about that; I cannot believe how she showed us all up!” Lars exclaims, mock-exasperated, but it doesn’t hold out.  His voice is back down to quiet, concerned, “what did she swear to tell me?”</p><p>“I’m in therapy,” he admits, grateful for the oblivious physio standing right in between him and Lars so he can’t see his captain’s face, “have been for about a month or so now, with one of her old university flatmates.  Just once a week at a place on the outskirts of the city.”</p><p>“Okay,” Lars says, probably trying very hard to mask any semblance of surprise.  “And how is that going?”</p><p>“Slowly.  I only got around to telling him the full story last week.”</p><p>“I’m sure that isn’t a problem, so long as you’re sure this guy is trustworthy.  I mean, if it’s got something to do with Julian, if the media got a hold of it… you don’t need me to tell you the insinuations people would make and what that could mean for you, what with the rife homophobia and so on…”</p><p>“I’m still not sure whether I entirely trust him, but Lotta does and he’s about the best I have.”</p><p>“I understand that,” Lars says gravely, mind still probably on all the work he’d have to do if Kai’s sexuality got leaked to the media.  Instinctively, Kai wants to pre-emptively apologise for it, but he knows Lars so well by now, just knows the older man would dismiss it instantly, but that’s not why he doesn’t waste his breath.  He doesn’t say it because, as much as he’d be persecuted for being gay, it’s who he is, and if he’s going to internally hate himself, the least he can do is externally act like he’s unashamedly himself.  “And what about your fight with Julian?”</p><p>“How did you know about that?” Kai doesn’t stop to check that the physios are still unaware of the heaviness of their conversation, it falls out of his mouth unchecked.</p><p>“This stuff always gets back to me,” Lars mumbles, almost embarrassed for some inexplicable reason, “and according to Reus, you weren’t as quiet as the two of you seemed to think you were being.”</p><p>“Marco told you?!” Kai grunts out, because the way his physio is manhandling his ankle is starting to really fucking hurt.  He doesn’t know how much longer of this he’s got to put up with this in today’s session, sweat patches forming on his shirt, but he thinks four weeks of this torture may actually put an end to him.</p><p>“No, Mitch did, but apparently he found out from Marco as well as what you told him, yes.  I’ve got to admit, not all of it made sense.”</p><p>It’s another moment when Kai’s caught between his head and his heart and their constant conflict, one half pulling towards excusing himself from the physio session and ringing his teammate in a fit of rage, demanding to know precisely why he went straight to the captain without even telling Kai he’d heard about the fight from a source that wasn’t him, and the other half imagining Marco, heading to Julian’s flat in Dortmund (Kai shivers at the memory of Marco’s teasing about Julian forgetting his cologne floating over the bus seats as they made their way to the airport and the jealousy that seared through him) and interrogating him about what he’d heard.  Kai imagines Julian, blushed and stuttering, explaining everything, maybe admitting stuff Kai would never let himself believe.</p><p>It’s too hopeful a pathway to follow.  Hope hasn’t given him anything good in months.</p><p>“What do you mean, not everything made sense?” He sighs the question, which he’d rather not ask.</p><p>“He told me that Marco has said that Julian was really forlorn and broken, but then he told me that you said Julian was angry beyond belief until he suddenly wasn’t.”</p><p>“I was there.  Marco wasn’t.”</p><p>“I don’t not believe you, Kai, trust me,” Lars sounds almost pissed, as though Kai’s drama is far beneath him, “but maybe what you interpreted as mad was actually just him hurting?”</p><p>“It’s possible,” he responds by some force of habit, before he really considers what the older man is saying.  Since he left Tallinn, he’d repeated his version of events in his own head so often it’s what he’s come to believe as a true recount of what happened, his thoughts of the glazed look in Julian’s eyes only being because he was furious spelling out his own truth.  What if Marco’s simply telling Julian’s truth, where he was incapacitated and maybe <em>something else Kai doesn’t dare hope for</em>?  Where would they go from there?</p><p>He’s filled with the sudden desire to sprint the eighty kilometres to Dortmund, collapse on Marco’s front door and demand to know what’s going on.  The only thing that stops him is his leg, which is now being twisted in all directions.</p><p>Marco wouldn’t be there anyway, he remembers belatedly, he would be on his way to, or already arrived in Düsseldorf, and that’s where Kai would be if he wasn’t on this bed, being violated by a member of club staff in the name of recovery.  Julian would be there too, with all his beauty and that stupid fucking forlorn fury, and maybe he’d hug Kai hello, or he’d have to be held back from punching him.</p><p>Julian said he’d miss him, but if Kai’s learnt anything is that he can’t trust what his former best friend says.  Not since he wordlessly promised he was going to stay, only to leave without so much as a whisper.</p><p>“Are you listening to me?”</p><p>“No, sorry, I just---,” he’s cut off, but not by Lars, or by either of the physio team, but by a creeping feeling of something being horribly wrong.  It’s like he can hear inaudible footsteps, and with every step the mysterious culprit takes, the sense multiplies, drowns him, accompanied by an evil laugh akin to one of the most merciless horror villains imaginable.  “Does it feel really cold in here to you?”</p><p>“No more than normal, but you are also just wearing a thin shirt.”</p><p>“I know that,” he answers, shakily exhaling.  The villain must have taken a seat or something, because the prophecy has stagnated, leaving him with a deafening sense of unfinished business, “don’t worry, just one of those weird moments.”</p><p>Lars doesn’t get a chance to respond, because the physios are taking their earphones out, rolling up the things they’ve used during their treatment, and are telling Kai and Lars to move along to the gym for the second and final part of their session today, and sharpish because they’re expecting a couple of members of the women’s team any moment then.  His ankle protests sharply the moment he puts his weight on it, way more than he thought it did when he entered the room an hour ago, but he doesn’t tell the physios as he hobbles behind Lars out of the room, still unable to shake the unusual feeling.</p><p>Two seconds later, he realises why.  He can hear Bosz’s voice coming from his office two doors down from the gym Lars and he are heading towards, and a giggle he knows to be Lotta’s, but he’s sure the manager isn’t talking to her.  He misses the addressee’s name as the physio room door shuts behind him, but he couldn’t miss the voice in a million fucking years.</p><p>“Yeah, I was nearby, and I thought I’d drop by and visit---,” Julian says, sounding way too calm and Kai’s got to keep following his captain towards the gym, because the gym coach is standing at the door to greet them, but what he really wants is to walk right by and walk into the office and maybe deck his former best friend, or make out with him, he’ll decide in due course.</p><p>It doesn’t make sense, Julian’s supposed to be forty kilometres away with the national team, not in his former team’s training complex.  And, while Kai’s been spending the last half-year wishing that it would happen again, now he’s really here, he wants to scream at him to get out.  It’s like an invasion when the defence is weakest, Kai’s still in that crumbling castle, his attempts to keep Julian’s advancing army becoming more futile by the second, it’s getting to the point where he can see the blue in his former best friend’s eyes from his battlements, tinged black with sick joy.</p><p>“Kai?” Lars says, looking blissfully unaware about their visitor as they step into the gym, “you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”</p><p>Kai whirls around, catches sight of himself in the big full-length mirrors that line one wall.  His face is white, drained of all blood, the lack of it is starting to send his brain into spasms, and for one horrid moment he’s convinced he’s about to faint.</p><p>“Come on, Kai, we’re about to start!” The boisterous gym staff member exclaims, pulling his attention away from analysing how sick he suddenly looks, and at least it manages to send a little of his blood back to his brain.  “We’ve only got a short session, half an hour or so, and then we’ll give you your tailored rehab programs, okay?”</p><p>Kai nods, voice caught in his throat as he thinks of Julian two doors away. The gym coach is still speaking at him, caught in what sounds like casual back-and-forth with Lars that Kai isn’t listening to, before telling them to go off and start their training.  Kai stands there, frozen in embarrassment that he wasn’t listening to any of it.</p><p>“What is wrong with you today, Kai?  I knew you weren’t listening to a word I was saying,” the trainer says, expression caught between finding Kai’s current dazed state funny and infuriating as he points Kai towards one of the weight machines.</p><p>“Oh, nothing,” racked with self-doubt that he was actually imagining it and Julian isn’t really there and not wanting to face the subsequent embarrassment if that actually was the case, he stutters out a bullshit excuse, “my ankle just hurts.”</p><p>He knows instantly he’s said the wrong thing judging by the way the trainer’s face blanches, hurriedly asking if Kai should head back to the physio room, and it takes Kai a good five minutes to convince him that it isn’t necessary, that he’ll be okay, walking with as little of a limp as he can manage over to the machine and lifting the weights off the holder.</p><p>“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” The trainer asks for the millionth time in the short period, “if you think you need to go back to the physios, just let me know and you can go.”</p><p>“Thanks,” he says, standing on his injured foot, cursing underneath his breath, and begins to do the activity Lars has already been doing the whole time.  His ankle screams from the moment he starts lifting the weights over his head, thigh shaking dangerously, and he can’t even forget it in favour of the strain on his triceps after fifty-odd repetitions.</p><p>“Try and keep your form, Kai,” the trainer says, in a gentle voice that isn’t intended to frustrate Kai as much as it does, because his form is the last thing he cares about when his leg feels as though it’s snapping in two.  As the trainer bends down to try and keep him straight, Kai hopes the guy doesn’t notice if he’s putting at least half of his body weight on him rather than on the injury.  It’s not good for rehabilitation, but he doesn’t even remember his last injury being anywhere near this painful.  “That’s it, and now lift the weight, you’ve only got to do a few more before we can move on.”</p><p>Kai moves his vision away from the staff member, meeting Lars’ eyes and the almost knowing look on the captain’s face.</p><p>“What?” He says, “why aren’t you doing the exercises?  Why are you looking at me like that?”</p><p>“You really didn’t listen to a word he said, did you?” His captain smiles thinly, “we’re supposed to be doing the exercises as a pair, because we’ve got similar injuries.  And I’m looking at you like this because I’m trying to figure out why you were so white when we got here.  You’re not feeling sick, are you?”</p><p>“No,” he says, not caring if it’s suspicious because that part is the truth.  He can’t tell Lars what he heard, because if he heard it on the walk to the gym, surely Lars would’ve too, and his captain would obviously make the mental leap between Julian’s appearance and Kai’s terrified look.  The staff member inflicting the pain on him finally stops and tells him to put the weights down and move towards the cross-trainers, which distracts him long enough to mutter a couple of expletives, but Lars is still eyeing him expectantly when he’s done.  “It’s nothing, I’m just in a lot of pain and for some reason my face decided to go white.”</p><p>If he really did fabricate hearing Julian’s voice, he’s just got shove that into another corner of Pandora’s box and not consider that he might actually be going mad.</p><p>“Okay,” the trainer says again, as if it’s some sort of personal requirement to proceed his speech, seemingly unaware of the subject of Kai and Lars’ discussion, “the two of you get on these.” Kai’s directed to a cross-trainer in the corner of the room, while Lars is put on one against the opposite wall, “now, we obviously don’t want to cause you further injury, so you’re not to run at any level above the basic minimum, but if it hurts too badly, you can stop at any time.  You can start now.”</p><p>Kai can’t help but wonder if the rehab technique is a little reckless, but he doesn’t hear Lars complaining, so he climbs gingerly onto his machine and begins to jog, placing the majority of his weight on his healthy leg.</p><p>“Not too fast, now, Kai,” the trainer says, leaning against the arm of the machine, “just keep a gentle pace.”</p><p>Every time his injured ankle falls with the machine pedal, he hisses angrily.  Recovery seems like such a difficult prospect, when he cannot even operate a unweighted machine at an almost pedestrian pace, with the rest of his issues just piling back on his shoulders like they did during the match in Wolfsburg, it’s like an enclosed, locked room, with the only escape route being to run a marathon in an impossible time around the tiny space.  The only good thing is he’s avoiding the hollers of the crowd, the snarling fans that criticise every misplaced pass and squandered goal opportunity, except this time they should be wearing the white of the national team and be from all over the country, not from the city he spends his life in, hurling insults at one of their own.</p><p>The relief is short-lived, because remembering where he ordinarily would be just reminds him that Julian isn’t there either, he’s here if Kai heard the occurrence correctly, and he missed Julian’s reason as to why.</p><p>Considering the smiles that broke out on the girls’ faces earlier; he wonders if they knew about it. He wonders if they were planning to revel in Kai getting his comeuppance, maybe film it, send it around on a group chat he’s excluded from to laugh at for years.</p><p>He’s about to ask to leave, because he thinks he genuinely is about to be sick, when he hears voices over the music blasting from the speakers, floating in through the open doors.</p><p>“Havertz and Lars are in there, in rehab,” Bosz says, “I know you want to see Kai, but I don’t think we should disturb them right now.”</p><p>“No, I completely agree,” Kai’s body goes heavy like he’s been removed from the inescapable room and moved and locked into a freezer, because he knows for a fact he isn’t hallucinating, Julian is really here, Bosz is with him, and Julian has come to see him.  It’s his best dream and worst nightmare all in one.</p><p>“Is that Julian Brandt?” Lars says loudly, and Kai wants to scream, because what he doesn’t want to do is have the lot of them think they’re welcome to just enter his space and laugh at him when he can barely even walk.  He’s hidden by the wall, but Julian being ten steps away when he’s not meant to be any closer than a forty-five-minute drive is sending him into meltdown, and it isn’t going to be pretty. “Julian, how long are you going to be here for?”</p><p>“As long as I need to be!” Julian’s voice rings out, beautiful and hoarse, so fucking familiar and so unlike the thick anger that sat in it when he yelled at Kai, “I won’t go without chatting to you, don’t you worry!”</p><p>“Good,” Lars says, before Kai overhears Bosz telling Julian they should go and see some of the other members of staff, and there’s a scary two minutes of silence as Kai works up the nerve to run.</p><p>“Sorry,” he says eventually, trying not to let the panic in his voice be audible because he knows Lars will figure him out and forbid it, “I’ve got to go to the bathroom.”</p><p>“Alright,” the staff member nods, slowly stopping the machine and helping Kai down, “Lars, you just carry on going.”</p><p>Lars might mutter an acknowledgement, but Kai’s pretty sure his head is on another planet by now, drenching him in a bucket full of icy water wouldn’t do anything to bring him back to himself, he’s all over the place and only half-convincingly covering up his surveillance of the corridor with his ankle seizing up in silence pain as he hobbles away.</p><p>He wonders what would happen if Julian and Bosz left whatever room they’re in at that moment, wonder if they’d call him down the corridor, maybe Julian would stride towards him and begin eviscerating him or whatever it he’s ditching the arrivals day at the national team to come and tell him.  His neck spasms painfully from the uncomfortable position checking over his shoulder as he reaches the dressing room, knocking quietly.  Hearing silence, he opens it and almost chokes on the relief in the air to find it deserted.</p><p>The stuff he’d left strewn everywhere takes what feels like a hell of a long time to clear into his bag.  At some point, he’ll text the big club-wide group chat that he had an emergency and had to leave, but there isn’t time right then.  He needs to get away from there.</p><p>“Hey, do you want to see the dressing room?” Bosz says from outside, “I’ll just have to go and get the new code, I can never remember it, just wait here---,”</p><p>Kai can’t leave out of the main door, all he’s got left is the back door they usually use for training, and there’s a gate to the outside world, he knows. Swearing, he clobbers himself in the head as he slams his hand on the scanner and prays it’s not too sweaty to recognise him.  There’s a brief moment of terror that Julian and Bosz are going to enter the room and catch him trying to escape, knows that’s going to cause him probably a month’s salary worth of fines, but right then he couldn’t give less of a shit.  If his need to get away was intense then, it’s a matter of life or death now.</p><p>There’s the horrific crash of wood as he slams the gate shut behind him.</p><p>The pain emanating from his ankle as he starts to run isn’t like anything he’s ever felt before.  He knows that he should stop, turn back or at least slow to a walk, but he’s run off the rails by the crazed desperation that has captured his mind, some macabre that’s relishing in his physical pain without even considering the hell that is his mind.  He doesn’t know where he’s going, just runs until sweat is pouring down his back and his shirt is sticking to him, panic racing through his blood and the second he collapses, he knows he is going to fall foul of probably the worst attack he’s ever had.</p><p>His one wish is he manages to get somewhere he won’t be found.  He needs to hide, from himself and his public persona, from the world, from the fans, from everyone who used to love him and now hates him, and Julian, who’s arsenal is laid out bare in front of him, polished and ready.</p><p>“Pull the trigger,” he gasps, inaudible over the noise his feet are making in their demented running, barely avoiding falling flat on his face as his ankle gets caught in some stray vines.  Death would be easier than this.</p><p>Yet still he sprints, probably causing some irrevocable damage to his leg as he does so, body taking him somewhere when his mind refuses to concentrate.</p><p>Blood drips down his forehead from where he rips through the thorn bush that conceals his hideaway, but the second he realises where he is, he isn’t in the least surprised.</p><p>So much has happened in the past ten minutes he’s sure he’s going to choke.  His feet don’t stop moving until he almost falls straight into the river.</p><p>• • • • • •</p><p>“I thought I might find you here.”</p><p>Kai feels sick.  He isn’t sure how long he’s been sitting on the river bank, legs dangling down towards the water, staring at the swirls of blue, the only indication of the passage of time being the sun starting to snake down towards the western sky, the goose bumps from the cold coating his skin, and the fact that at some point since he’s been sat there, he stopped having to swipe blood away from his eye.  He couldn’t have moved even if he wanted to, and now he’s a sitting duck for Julian’s attack, which is probably seconds away from commencing.</p><p>He doesn’t look up to where Julian is, does nothing to even inform his former best friend he’s even aware of his presence.  He always knew he’d never have the bravery to stare his assailant in the eyes before they dealt the fatal blow, but if you’d told him on New Year’s Day that’d the man he’d woken up next to would be the person to do it, he’d have never believed it.</p><p>Every second Julian doesn’t do anything is anguish, the evillest form of prolonging Kai’s pain.  Maybe Julian just wants to savour it, delight in the opportunity he’s been waiting for since Kai made him hate him, or maybe he’s just deciding which weapon would work best.</p><p>As long as it’s quick, Kai couldn’t care less.</p><p>Of course, Julian might not get around to killing him, not if the white fog in his mind continues to grow until it cuts off his air supply and he dies straining for oxygen, unable to communicate except for a stray tear slipping down his cheek.  The fear does that to him, and all the times he’s managed to evade it are looking more and more like they’re solely responsible for what’s about to happen.  It’s his own fucking fault, and maybe he could show Julian than he can take responsibility if it’s the last thing he ever does.</p><p>Fuck all the times he’d said he was getting better.  It’s just like Jannis said all those weeks ago.  He’s just counting the days he feels okay as improvement, when really, he was just straggling along in delusion.  He wonders if anyone else could tell, momentarily hates them for not challenging him more.</p><p>They’d probably just think he’d yell at them.  Knowing him, he probably would have done, so locked in that reality when everyone else was the problem purely because he was too cowardly to consider the alternative.  That world is long dead, and its only occupant is holding on to the final dregs of life before he goes, too.</p><p>“It’s probably a bit too cold for me to throw you in,” Julian’s tone is light with a laugh that Kai wants to punch him for.  His former best friend had moved closer while Kai had been lost in contemplation, hot breath ghosting across the skin of Kai’s bare neck, causing him to shiver.  “Fucking hell, Kai, you’re frozen.  Why the hell aren’t you wearing a jacket?”</p><p>It’s like the older man is speaking a foreign language, even though Kai understands every word he says. A wall of ice has formed over his lungs, unbreakable except for the chink in the armour that he already knows the other man's eyes will be meticuously searching for.  Pain blasts Julian away, it’s like he’s trying to yell at him from the moon and Kai is deaf, he’s so busy trying to block Julian out he’s not noticed how close he’s become.  His brain repeats the way Julian’s voice choked up as he said Kai’s name, just like he did the morning after they kissed in Munich, when it almost seemed like the possibility for the two of them was infinite.  If Julian had taken the lead, Kai would’ve gone anywhere with him.</p><p>Julian didn’t then, so Kai could never find the strength to.  Julian had left him in the stars, walked off into a black hole and happiness alone, and never offered Kai the chance to come with him.</p><p>When Julian drapes a denim coat over Kai’s shoulders, Kai almost laughs.  It’s like he’s being dressed for slaughter, and the perpetrator only wants to extend his vindication to the utmost humiliation.  But he doesn’t laugh, only because he thinks he might cry instead, especially when Julian slips down to sit next to him, and Kai can feel those gorgeous eyes locked onto his skin, tracing his body with their venom, searching for the perfect spot to strike.  He still doesn’t look at him.</p><p>“I know you come here to think,” Julian whispers, sounding more personal than Kai’s heard him in <em>months</em>, his heart is begging to drop the act of nonchalance and look at him, but he can’t.  Because he doesn’t know what he might find, and while he might never have been scared of Julian himself before, only the idea of what Julian might say to him, he definitely is now, “there were so many times when I was in Leverkusen that you’d disappear and I’d come here to try and find you, and you’d be sitting just like this---,”</p><p>Julian cuts himself off, spluttering a little, and it’s too much to hope that he’s overcome by emotion.  Every word his former best friend says is an addition to the list forming rapidly in Kai’s mind of all the things that he’s forbidding himself to hope for.  It’s a little bubble shield, and he knows that Julian will find something to break it eventually.</p><p>But this time, he isn’t going to pass the older man the needle.</p><p>“--- you always looked so deep in thought I could never bring myself to disturb you.  But I think I will now, Kai, what are you thinking about?”</p><p>Kai isn’t sure what he looks like at that precise moment, probably like he’s been forced to walk through the most blood-curdling landscapes of hell, barely closed wounds on his forehead, blood trails, an ankle swollen beyond belief from his escape. Every inch of him must be being drunken in by Julian, right down to the flicker of his eyes that he knows must be changing with every moment.  He is so fucking scared.  He isn’t content with what’s happening, there’s a million things he isn’t saying, because he can’t find his voice.</p><p>Even if he could, he’d dread to think what it would sound like.</p><p>His eyes drop back to the water from where they had raised to the grass lining the bank.  He stares past their reflection, tries to ignore the way the water portrays Julian with more beauty than Kai ever thought was possible in the world, down into the riverbed, the black, murky soil that poisons the cerulean glass.  He stares with such an intensity the colours etch into his mind, intertwine and untangle and splatter their mixture all over his sense.  Whatever remnant of himself he was clasping onto is waning fast, as though Julian was sucking it out of him.  If the thought could get past his lips, he’d beg the older man to stop.</p><p>“You’re not going to tell me what you’re thinking?”</p><p>He doesn’t know if Julian can hear the refusal he breathes out.  The jacket still hangs over him oddly, the wind cutting past it like it isn’t there.  Julian’s body heat had provided some brief respite from early winter’s menace, but the novelty of that has long since worn off, Kai’s cold-hearted solitude manipulating the warmth into the most numbing gusts of all.  If they sit there for long enough, a layer of ice might form on the surface of the water.</p><p>It’d be beautiful to watch that happen, he thinks, watch as the weather solidifies the history that they had underneath the unbreakable sheet.  Even so, it wouldn’t hold a candle to Julian.</p><p> “Do you remember that time last summer when you, me, Mitch and Sam found this place?  I remember when you and I threw Mitch into the water, I can still hear the way he yelled at us---,” Julian trails off again, torn between laughing at the memory, Kai can hear it in the way he speaks, screaming at him from how well the older man knows him, and sounding disheartened at how silent Kai remains.  He was going to try not saying anything at all, he knows Julian will have to leave eventually, he’s probably already broken about one hundred rules by not being with the national team and his former best friend was never blessed with the gift of endless patience, but it doesn’t work.  Somewhere, somehow, he finds his voice, croaky and destroyed and god, he sounds so fucking in love, but he just can’t help it, can’t stop the way his voice pitches in some airless manner that sounds god-awful, and barely manages to keep himself from looking at Julian.</p><p>“I think about that all the time.”</p><p>“You do?” There’s so much hope in Julian’s voice Kai wants nothing more than to tell his former best friend about the fact that having faith is so fucking pointless, but he can’t.  He doesn’t want to face the questions he knows would come about how he came to that conclusion, because that would basically be confessing everything that he’s ever felt about Julian directly to him.  His parents know, Jannis knows, and it would be so easy to assume he’d misplaced the trust he placed in them, but he’s going to try and not.  Even if he’s got no hope for the future, he can at least pray that Julian remains in his peaceful disengagement.  “How often do you come here?”</p><p>“I couldn’t tell you, but a lot less recently.” The reluctance now plaguing him is only a fraction better than the raw emotion, and only then because it’s less revealing.</p><p>“Less on your mind?”</p><p>“No.  Too much, actually.  I didn’t want to spoil this place for myself, but I guess it’s too late now.”</p><p>“What do you mean by that?”</p><p>Questions, they’re going to drive him even crazier than he already is.  What he wants to do is just turn to Julian and beg him to just finish what he’s come to do, or maybe get up and sprint away and hope his leg holds out just long enough to get away from Julian, and then maybe go back to the river and throw himself in and stay there until his blood solidifies in his veins and he sinks to the bottom, never to see the surface.</p><p>It would be quite something to see the world from that angle, underneath the water as it ripples over him.  But he won’t get that far in this condition, especially not since Julian’s hand has come to rest atop his, and suddenly it feels like Kai’s heart has relocated there, because it goes haywire and he’s sure he’s about to faint.  Love and hate pour through him, undergoing their final battle for dominance and he knows this is it, the two of them are finally going to decide their victory with Julian there, right then.  He braces himself against the explosions coming from inside him.</p><p>Once it’s done, he knows he’ll be able to move on from this.  But until that point, he’s a warzone like he’s never been before, and he might not survive.</p><p>“Why are you here, anyway?  You’re meant to be in Düsseldorf, anyway, I didn’t see anything saying you’d withdrawn, and I know you lost to Bayern on Saturday, but you didn’t come off with an injury--,”</p><p>“I took a wrong turn on the way to Düsseldorf.”</p><p>“What?” Kai spits out, suddenly finding his resolution not to look at Julian excruciatingly difficult, “if that’s the truth, where’s Marco?  Surely you would’ve travelled with him, right?”</p><p>If he looked at Julian, he’d probably see his former best friend eye-rolling or something, judging by the sad laugh he lets out.  It’s probably not what Julian intends, but Kai can’t help but feeling like an idiot in its wake.</p><p>“It’s nice to see you follow Dortmund, although we weren’t exactly worth watching,” Julian shudders behind him, “Mats really got it from the fans as well.”</p><p>There are few things Kai wants to talk about less than Dortmund, even if it’s a little hypocritical given he was the one who brought them up in the first place, so he tunes out of Julian’s dejected reminiscence, instead allowing his mind to berate him for giving up the promise of silence at the first sign of Julian’s laughter.  He isn’t sure what came over him, why his brain went into that little nonsensical mental cataclysm and his anger resigned.  Maybe it was love winning the first of the critical battles, but even so, he stays firmly rooted to the side of supporting hating his former best friend, purely because it’s easier.</p><p>Julian’s voice is a muffled low tone as Kai reverts to being a spectator of his own mind, watches as love slices into hate’s army with a sword encrusted with glittering diamonds, cutting an object Kai recognises as the timebomb in two and kicking it away brutally.  It’s an inanimate war, but it feels more real than anything else.</p><p>Eventually, the older man must realise that Kai isn’t listening, because the buzzing of his voice ceases.  Kai misses it as soon as it’s gone, as much as he despised the topic, but maybe now he’s really got to start steeling himself for the fight, for Julian’s attack, because now the conversation has died he is completely exposed, standing there, avoiding his former best friend’s eyes, ready to feel whatever Julian chooses impale into his skin.</p><p>Julian picks his weapon, and Kai hates him for it.  Because, really, there was no question that Julian would use anything that wasn’t words, because he knows the thing that really destroys Kai is honesty.  Kai’s shown him that every time they’ve met since he left, and every time they slept together before they did.</p><p>If they were honest, they wouldn’t be like this, and it wouldn’t be the thing that renders Kai more broken than anything else.</p><p>“I missed being here, with you.” Julian begins, voice thicker than before, as if there’s something trying to get out from him, as well.  Kai wants to think about it so badly it’s eating him up inside, tearing him into shreds to be digested, but he can’t.  It’s a dangerous road, and he can’t trust Julian, and <em>he can’t have hope</em>.</p><p>He’s slipping away from what he’s been telling himself ever since he learnt it.</p><p>“The thing is, we used to have so much fun here, and you were so unapologetically yourself, and I just---,” Julian stops, Kai can feel him shift next to him, maybe he’s mouthing words he can’t say, but the scariest thing is he can’t fathom any universe in which Julian isn’t telling the truth right then.  He’d spent so long being so distrustful of Julian, reassuring himself that his former best friend was lying and doing everything to multiply the pain Kai had exhibited in the hallway of his old home the night he arrived home from Barcelona, but the blanket of protection has gone.  Ran away, and Kai doesn’t know how to be without it anymore.</p><p>“Kai, please, won’t you look at me?” Julian sounds so broken, like he was coming to this, that Kai almost listens.  It takes every ounce of his strength to fixate his eyes on the river, but he can feel it all falling to pieces.  Julian’s got the hammer, he’s found the foundation, and the whole structure moments away from all crumbling down around them.</p><p>“I thought about it.  About what you said.”</p><p>His resolution falls to the ground with a deafening, silent crash.  He looks up, meets Julian’s eyes properly for what feels like the first time ever, takes in the blue glint that’s morphed dangerously dark by the glistening tears Kai’s close enough to see.  It makes him want to upturn his palm and interlock their fingers, or maybe just lace his hands into the older man’s messy, blonde hair and kiss him until the sky falls.  Not doing either of them is enough to almost kill him.</p><p>He takes in Julian’s face, sees the black circles outlining his eyes, the exhaustion he can see weighing down his shoulders, and god, he wants to touch him, wants to run his fingers along that vast expanse of pale skin until Julian has forgotten he was ever weary.  The sentiment isn’t unfamiliar, he’s thought it pretty much every day since that stupid fucking day he realised he was in love with his former best friend, but he’s never felt it with such a burning intensity.  He’s never felt like it would restore the hope he thought he would never get back.</p><p>“You what?” His voice is barely audible either, but Julian is so close and unblinking, there’s no way he missed it.</p><p>“Well, thinking about it was perhaps a bit of an understatement,” Julian laughs again, but this time there isn’t even a wisp of humour in it, “given I’ve done nothing but tear myself up over it for the past month.”</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>“Do you not remember?  You specifically told me to think about it when you left my hotel room.”</p><p>“You mean---,” speaking has become nigh-on impossible again, but he knows he has to force the words out amidst the battle taking place in his throat.  Every second he looks at Julian, he’s adding rows upon rows of soldiers to love’s army, the war is coming to its culmination, and Kai has not prepared himself for this outcome, is anything but ready to experience the agony of being in love with a renewed, murderous vigour.  “What I told you when we had that fight?”</p><p>“Yeah,” a couple of tears overspill, trickling down his cheek slowly.  Kai’s eyes follow them down Julian’s face, and the look in his former best friend’s eyes when he finally glances back up is enough to stab him through the heart with how much he loves him.  It’s a miracle he hasn’t felt it so hard it’s come falling out yet.  “Everything you said about me having weapons to kill you, it was so fucking clear how much I’d hurt you; I just didn’t want to accept it.  I couldn’t, I wasn’t strong enough to take that guilt on, so I just put it all onto you instead, and I think that’s the weapon you were referring to.”</p><p>“Not in so many words,” he chokes out, “but something like that.”</p><p>Hate’s surrendered.  There’s nothing to him but pure love, all his anger at Julian’s betrayal seems a thousand miles away now he’s got Julian next to him, raw and open and honest, breaking down all the walls Kai had put up so painstakingly.  He can’t bring himself to be mad about it, not when Julian’s hurdling over them, pushing them down, providing him with fresh air and god, fuck, Kai is completely fucked, but for the first time in his life, believing Julian might be too isn’t just a fantasy.</p><p>If it isn’t, he’s about to suffer the biggest heartbreak of his life, but he doesn’t have a choice but take the risk.  It’s like the river, he can’t swim upstream forever, someday he’s going to tire and be forced back down.</p><p>But if Julian’s there to catch him, god, he would go willingly.</p><p>“I didn’t want to think about it, Kai, because I could see what it was doing to you, and I wasn’t strong enough to stop it.  You got so thin, so pale, I saw it every week when I watched your games, even when you hated me I was still watching you, I couldn’t not,” Julian’s almost sobbing now, words bordering indistinguishable and yet the most clear thing Kai has ever heard, “and I tried to play it off and chastise myself for assuming I had that importance but it became so obvious, the things I heard about you, fuck, this probably doesn’t make any sense, I’m sorry.”</p><p>“I thought you hated me.”</p><p>“I thought you hated <em>me</em>,” Julian shoots back, “so I tried to stop, but I couldn’t stop noticing it.”</p><p>“Why did you even notice?  From what I heard, you were having the time of your life in Dortmund--,” his heart squeezes at the memories of watching the Dortmund Instagram stories on his sofa, watching Julian smile the grin he always thought was reserved for him alone.</p><p>“How could I not notice?” Julian’s voice is stronger now, even though the tears are coming faster than before, “it’s you, Kai.  I couldn’t not notice because I’m always looking at you, and it kills me sometimes, and it killed me to see how I was killing you.  But then, yesterday, I was sitting by the river in Dortmund, thinking about you and this place here, and I realised that when I left, I just floated a little downstream, and that the point of that wasn’t to get to the end, it was just to see what life had in store for me.  When I got to Dortmund, Kai, I knew then that it might not be where I end up forever, I could go anywhere I want to in future, but even from there, I couldn’t stop myself from looking back, because I truly believed you’d catch up to me.  And, when I sat and thought about what you said last break, I realised that you weren’t going to follow me, so that’s why I’m here.  I glided against the current because I am in love with you, I always have been, and it wasn’t like I could do anything else.”</p><p>Julian is sitting in front of him, blue eyes reflected green from the tearstains, cheeks pink from the sobs that are still racking through him, voice finally shot to shit as he croaked out the last words, and fucking hell, he looks the most beautiful Kai has ever seen him.  It doesn’t make sense, nothing they do ever has, and he would laugh at the irony of a confession that fits perfectly into how fucked up they are if he was sure Julian wouldn’t run away if he did.</p><p>“You what?” He says again, finally daring to lift his hands to the older man’s cheeks and rub the tears away, heart convulsing at the thing that looks like love in Julian’s expression.  He smiles, so genuine he knows Julian will get what he means, “I didn’t quite catch that last bit.”</p><p>“You fucker,” Julian says thickly, laughing despite the tears that flow almost as fast as Kai can stroke them, “I said I’m in love with you.”</p><p>“I thought you did,” he mumbles back, caught in between polar opposites, bravery and a crippling shyness, because he wants nothing more than to lean across and press his lips against Julian’s.  He can’t, not yet, because he needs to tell Julian first, “I’m glad you did.  I wouldn’t want to tell you that I’ve been in love with you since forever as well and that not have been what you actually said.”</p><p>Julian looks dumbfounded, to the point where Kai’s about to ask if he planned for every eventuality aside from this one, but he doesn’t get the chance to.  Julian’s hand comes up, locks around the wrist of one of Kai’s that are still delicately touching his face, pulls it down and laces their fingers together.  It’s okay, though.  There’s probably quite a lot of time for him to tease Julian about that, and the absolute fucking cheesiness of the older man’s confession.</p><p>Julian’s hand feels heavy in his own.  Kai is so familiar with that hand, has had its calloused palm run over his body more times than he cares to remember on nights when he’d pretend with all his might like he felt nothing, even though he knows now that Julian felt the same.  The other hand rises to touch his cheek, bring his eyeline back up to meet Julian’s from where it had dropped to their hands, his heart practically beating out of his chest when he watches Julian’s eyes slip shut.</p><p>Julian’s lips taste salty as they press gently against his own, one hand sliding around Kai’s back to grip his waist, as if he’s scared Kai will float away if he dares let go. It’s a fleeting sensation, every grazing touch setting Kai alight and causing his heart to flip over in his chest, before Julian pulls away, breathing heavily regardless of the lightness of the kisses, holding Kai’s hand so tightly Kai’s pretty sure he’s cutting off the blood circulation.</p><p>“What are you doing?” Kai giggles, sounding even more fucked than he did before and couldn’t give less of a shit about it.</p><p>“Shut up,” Julian flips him off, cheeks flaming back to scarlet from where the colour had started to fade, “I just wanted to look at you for a minute.”</p><p>“Can you do that later?” Kai whines, pulling Julian back towards him and peppering his mouth with kisses.  It’s a little cheeky, sudden, he feels Julian’s yelps of protest against the skin of his neck and it sends his heart into another meltdown he’d happily spend the rest of his life experiencing.  All the hurt he’s suffered, he’d do it all over again for this one moment, watching Julian’s resolve to deny Kai of his lips dying out more with every second Kai smiles down at him, something fizzling in his blood that feels more like joy than any feeling he’s ever had, “I’ve waited so fucking long to kiss you and now you’re only giving me little kisses.”</p><p>There’s a mischievous glint in Julian’s eyes that belies he’s about to say something that’s going to evoke some visceral cringe in Kai, and he doesn’t want to hear it right now.  He reattaches his lips to Julian’s, blushes furiously when he subconsciously releases a noise that sounds like a kittenish moan, before Julian starts to push him down to the ground, swinging a leg over Kai’s body haphazardly as he deepens the kiss.</p><p>Kai didn’t believe butterflies were a real sensation, but right there, with Julian on top of him and kissing him slowly, almost lazily if it wasn’t for the underlying intensity, he’s pretty sure his stomach is full of the things.  When Julian’s tongue swipes against his lips, nipping him gently with his teeth in delight as Kai grants him access, Kai can’t stop himself from shaking slightly, gripping onto Julian’s back like he might die if he doesn’t.</p><p>“Fuck,” Julian whispers, like there’s no one else in the world but them, “fucking hell, Kai.”</p><p>It doesn’t feel like Munich did.  Then, for all Kai’s heart surrendered itself to Julian and laid itself bare in a way he thought words could never be capable of, these senses were muted, as if they’d been kissing underwater, because he’d thought he’d known implicitly back then that nothing would ever come of it.  He’s awash with the sensations now, the tide of the ocean he’d always likened Julian to has finally come in and is surrounding him, messing up his hair, but the water’s warm, grounding, makes Kai feel like he’s finally home.</p><p>Part of him wants to mock Julian’s incoherency, but he couldn’t find the words to do it.  All he can do is smile slightly as Julian’s tongue slides against his own, twisting the older man’s blonde hair in the hand that has moved to his head, caressing him because any vocabulary in any language has momentarily left him.</p><p>He couldn’t try to describe the emotion that claims him the second Julian’s lips are made to break apart from his own due to the fucking annoying necessity for oxygen, and he’s sure words that could quantify it don’t exist anyway.  It feels like the strongest form of relief, of joy, of escaping the clutches of horror he’s been captive of ever since he woke up in Barcelona and read the news.</p><p>Julian leans back down and presses a few little pecks on his face, missing his mouth slightly.  Kai’s so lost in just feeling the older man move above him, all the nerve endings on his body screaming at the hot breath, the fingertips ghosting across his collarbone that’s fallen exposed, so completely fucked and out of it he doesn’t notice at first.  Julian might be taking his brain to pieces, dismantling him so effortlessly until he’s a wreck of what he used to be, body rendered as tiny shards, useless but so fucking happy, but when he feels the hard bulge against his leg, his skin jumps, hot in excitement.</p><p>His finger trails down, sneaks underneath the hem of Julian’s shirt and draws a tiny circle on the small of the older man’s back, relishing the gasp Julian lets out against him.  It’s the most beautiful sound he’s ever witnessed, because when they used to have sex there was none of this intimate touching, no noisy, breathless confessions of love or want, it was silence thick with secrecy. The absence of shame when the familiar whirl starts to build in the pit of his stomach almost feels completely odd.</p><p>Kai wants to banish all those memories right there and then.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Julian chokes out, moving like he’s going to climb off Kai, and no, Kai can’t fucking have that, “it just happened, um---,”</p><p>“Please don’t apologise, and please don’t go,” Kai mumbles, not entirely sure if Julian can understand him.  It doesn’t matter either way, his hand moves to grip Julian down on top of him, still not quite believing that he’s able to do this now, “I just need to stay here with you for a minute.”</p><p>“Not like I’m going to go out to my car in this state, especially since the media thinks I’m supposed to be with the national team,” Julian laughs slightly, and god, Kai could get so used to this. He hopes Julian can’t tell the way his heart drops at the reminder that it won’t be long before the older man has to leave him, at the latest he’ll be gone by the time Kai wakes up tomorrow morning, and he knows he’ll spend the whole week worrying if this was just the cruellest taste of what might have been, before Julian goes back to his life in Dortmund and Kai’s stuck here unable to get his mind off him.</p><p>In spite of himself, he asks anyway.</p><p>“When are you going to meet up with them?”</p><p>“You’re an idiot,” Julian places the tiniest kiss on Kai’s forehead, soft lips gliding over Kai’s skin and even that is enough to make Kai go weak at the fucking knees, he’s so lucky he was flat on his back beforehand because he’d have collapsed otherwise, probably rolled all the way down the bank and into the water.  “I’m going to call Lӧw and tell him that there’s been something really important happen in my personal life and that I will have to withdraw from the break.  As if I could leave you now.”</p><p>“But you always loved playing for the national team, and getting to see all the guys---,”</p><p>“I love that, yes.  But I love you more than any of that, Kai, believe me.  If I go, I’ll spend the whole week wishing I was back here with you, and that’s why right now, with you is where I need to be.”</p><p>Kai doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just presses a kiss to Julian’s lips, lets the older man lay him back down and kiss him until he’s breathless, exhausted, blood flaming and threatening to flood south just like Julian’s did.</p><p>“We need to get out of here,” he mutters, trying not to sound like he’s completely been taking over by his own arousal that has sparked so suddenly he’s dizzy, but judging by the expression on Julian’s face, and the way his hand moves to run lightly over the visible bulge in Kai’s training clothes, he isn’t successful.</p><p>“Come on, then.”</p><p>Kai resists the temptation to shove Julian into a particularly thorny patch of the bush when his boyfriend leans over and whispers something about fucking him that just serves to make the walk back to the carpark extremely agonising.  Julian’s laughter sounds so beautiful in the wintry air.</p><p>They’re almost back to where Julian left his car, the older man explaining to Kai that he rejected the DFB’s offer to escort him to Düsseldorf, when Kai remembers something.</p><p>“Shit, I agreed with Lotta that she would run me home,” he starts to rifle through his bag, eyebrows knitting in confusion when Julian stops him, “what are you doing?”</p><p>It’s roughly then does he clock the embarrassed smile on Julian’s face.</p><p>“She isn’t expecting to drive you home, Kai, she just said she would if all this shit didn’t go how I planned it.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“You really think I didn’t spend hours deliberating whether or not I should actually come and do this?” Julian glances up and down the grassy pathway they’re enclosed in, view blocked by some trees that still have a few leaves left, before catching Kai’s lips in a kiss that just sets his mind back on what he wants nothing more than to do.  “The whole thing was planned, from Sophia dropping you off so I could drive you back to your flat and fuck you,” Julian’s voice drops to a whisper, teeth biting at the skin of Kai’s neck and <em>there’s that fucking shiver again</em>, “I wasn’t going to do it until the convinced me I should.”</p><p>“They told you how I felt about you?” Kai says, reluctantly shoving the older man (his boyfriend?  He’s too scared to ask but judging by the way Julian’s eyes flicker with affection he’s pretty sure they are) away from him, because if he doesn’t stop being so fucking affected, he’s going to drop to his knees and suck Julian’s dick right there.</p><p>“Not exactly.  Did they tell you about me?”</p><p>“No, they insisted in speaking in these annoying hypotheticals.  I could never get anything out of them.”</p><p>“Sounds like them,” Julian grins, speeding up his pace as he squeezes Kai’s hand.</p><p>The walk from their hideaway to the carpark has never felt this long, not even when he was being forced to walk with an overly suspicious Sophia and Lotta to his first therapy session.  The air is running thin again, his lungs burnt out with want, when Julian’s thumb brushes lightly against the curve of his wrist.</p><p>It feels like he’s back in Barcelona, walking back up the path to their hotel on that humid night before Julian fucked him for the last time before all the secrets came pouring out to the public, and he can’t keep himself from calling out.  The flashbacks, the memories of how certain he’d been that it was just another fuck, how dumb he’d been not to pick up on the weird finality he realises had been draped heavily in all of Julian’s actions that night, it’s too much and he can’t have Julian do this to him.</p><p>“Are you okay?”</p><p>“Please don’t touch me like that,” he blurts out, expecting Julian to look at him with misperception and disgust, like he’s some sort of overdramatic freak, which is mostly why he feels like he’s been flipped over and his body rearranged when Julian looks almost embarrassed.  “I mean, it just reminds me of Barcelona, and---,”</p><p>“I know,” Julian sighs, “that’s why I did it.”</p><p>Kai’s ragged, almost panicked breath is its own question.</p><p>“I tried to tell you I was leaving by writing it on your wrist that night, but the moment I heard about your reaction the morning after I signed for Dortmund, I knew you hadn’t got it.  It was stupid, and way, way, way less than you deserved, especially with how I felt about you, but I’ve told you so many times I just didn’t know how to say it aloud to you.”</p><p>“That’s the cheesiest thing I’ve ever heard,” Kai laughs, half hoping he also won’t cry.  The look Julian shoots him is so incredulous, he almost feels a little bad, and if anyone was to see them, they’d probably look sickeningly cute when he places another kiss on the older man’s mouth.  It’s probably a little excessive, but he just can’t fucking stop himself.</p><p>“I was going to tell you that I was actually tracing how much I love you on your wrist today, but after that comment, I don’t think you deserve to hear it.”</p><p>Kai spends the entire rest of the walk back to Julian’s car in fits of giggles, heart stuttering every time Julian glances over with such a fucking fond look in his eyes that he’s sure must be reflected in his own face.  It still doesn’t feel real, that almost two hours ago he was being forced into all sorts of uncomfortable positions by the physios, or freaking out about Julian’s sudden appearance at the training ground, and the idea that the older man could ever feel the same seemed intangible, and now he’s being touched all over and probably going to be fucking railed and having kisses placed delicately all over him.</p><p>“By the way, you should probably text Lars and Bosz.  They were freaking out when you didn’t come back from the bathroom.”</p><p>Once Kai’s sent that message, alongside a couple others to the girls and Jannis (mainly calling them cunts for arranging this behind his back, following it with truly heartfelt declarations of love) he rests an arm against the car window ledge and just watches the older man drive, noticing that right down to the way his eyelashes flutter when he blinks that Julian is absolutely stunning, disturbingly so, and he’s so distracted it rips his inhibitions from him,</p><p>“Are we together?”</p><p>“If you want to be,” Julian grins, risking a quick glance at him.  Kai places a hand on Julian’s, murmuring about how he’d want nothing more, skin beginning to warm pre-emptively at the touch and the slight giddiness that’s been slowly flowing through him ever since Julian’s erection brushed against him in the clearing spikes, it’s terrifying and beautiful, he’s pretty sure he’s never felt like this.  The cloud that had been hanging thick in the sky even when he was dropped off by Sophia earlier has darkened the city, the streetlights coming on even though it’s not even evening, the golden haze catching on Julian’s pale skin and fuck, just when Kai was convinced he couldn’t get even more beautiful.</p><p>His sense of reason has left him, replaced by a broken record that merely repeats how gorgeous Julian is, and the scariest thing of all is that he wouldn’t have it any other way.</p><p>It’s only then does he realise he’s flung himself off the edge, falling into the blackness with Julian’s hand clasped tight in his own.  He doesn’t know when he’ll reach the bottom, if it even exists, but he can’t bring himself to care anymore.  Not if Julian’s with him.</p><p>It feels like an eternity has passed by the time his boyfriend (his stomach twists at the word) pulls up at Kai’s flat, mumbling something about how the last time he was here he stood helplessly by the front door for hours after Kai ran away, how he’d waited with nothing but a hope that Kai would come back, and only a text from Jannis could’ve dragged him away.  If it wasn’t for the fact Kai remembers the fear so well, how much he’d convinced himself the only way to survive was through hating Julian’s guts, he’d have felt guilty.</p><p>The atmosphere between them changes instantly the moment Julian closes the door behind him, looking way too relaxed to be in Kai’s presence.</p><p>“Coffee?”</p><p>“No,” Julian murmurs, smiling, before Kai feels his back slam against the door, Julian’s lips pressing hard against his own, hot and wet and demanding and Kai needs more of it, but he’s weak, defenceless in the face of his boyfriend’s onslaught, so he lets Julian run a hand through his hair, gasping slightly when his hands get caught in the messy curls.</p><p>The fire coursing through him hadn’t been fully put out from the journey back, and Julian’s touch, hands snaking underneath Kai’s shirt and spidering across the tight skin of his lower stomach, is like the heaviest dousing of petrol, Kai’s arousal flaming dramatically, orange flares scattering into a dark sky.  He’s about as hard as he’s ever been in his life, even from the feigned innocence in Julian’s touches, and he knows he’s going to be absolutely ribbed for it after.</p><p>Julian presses a touch against the bulge in his sweatpants, so light and teasing Kai can’t bring himself to be embarrassed when he groans, his body is completely at the older man’s mercy and they haven’t even left the fucking entrance hall yet, but if Julian keeps doing this they’re sure as hell not going to make it anywhere else.</p><p>The beg is almost indecipherable mixed in with his gasps, incoherent, messy pleading that he can see reflected as lust in his boyfriend’s eyes when he pulls away (Kai shivers at the cold air hitting his bare arms, he doesn’t have a clue what happened to the jacket Julian placed on him earlier and currently couldn’t give less of a shit).  His stomach jumps again, lurching in excitement and want and all the things he used to forbid himself from feeling.</p><p>“Same,” Julian murmurs, hand so hot in Kai’s own he’s sure he’s going to leave burn marks.</p><p>“What?” Kai’s voice is back to being almost clammed up by how overwhelming all of this is, lets himself be dragged towards his room because god knows he hasn’t got the strength to stand upright the whole way there.</p><p>“I used to tell myself I wasn’t allowed to moan,” Julian says, and Kai feels shame rise to match the arousal that must be glowing on his cheeks, because he had no idea that he’d said that out loud. “Thought that if I did, I might have made it obvious how I felt about you.”</p><p>“I wish you had,” he can’t keep himself from saying, right as his boyfriend pulls him into his bedroom, and even though some of the fire in his blood had extinguished in embarrassment, the moment he falls back against the mattress, watches Julian rid himself of his jacket and shirt so quickly Kai wonders if he really is going to leave afterwards, the fizzing sensation returns and the knot in his stomach starts to form, his dick hardening all over again and god, it must be so fucking obvious.  They’ve got so much to talk about, probably an unknown number of tears still to be shed, but right now Kai doesn’t care about anything that isn’t Julian and the way his boyfriend runs a hand through his hair.</p><p>He murmurs something he thinks might be a curse, but it’s all so fucked up in the most beautiful way possible, he has no idea.  Julian’s on the same wavelength, he knows because the older man doesn’t bother to ask, merely leans down and pulls Kai’s shirt off, pressing wet kisses along the exposed curve of Kai’s shoulder.</p><p>The instant Julian’s lips mouth his pulse point, it’s like something primal is unearthed within him, pulling the older man down against him and moaning at the feeling of the skin against his own, Julian’s on fire and it’s spreading to him, hands everywhere and he’s drowning, he’s going to die here, he knows he will regardless of whatever shitty jokes Julian might make, but the groan Julian lets out when Kai slides a hand to explore the expanse of his back, dip into the crevices and map him out, it’s another reminder that Julian’s going to die with him.  He can’t get enough of him.</p><p>Julian’s body should be so familiar, and in a way it is, his eyes raking down the torso he could recreate in his imagination anywhere, but accompanied by the breaths, wanton, short, belying how into this the older man is if he ever dared to hide it, it seems so different.  Kai didn’t know it was possible for him to get more gorgeous, but right now, Julian’s definitely managing it.</p><p>“Don’t… want to hurt your leg,” Julian says, muffled slightly by the way he’s obsessively pressing kisses to every part of Kai’s skin he can reach.  It’s thrilling, sends new waves of excitement lashing with stunning viciousness over the younger man.  He can barely breathe for all the water, pulls Julian closer to revel in it, in him, in what is happening between the two of them that he never thought he’d get again.</p><p>Julian’s erection brushes against his own, and the only thought he can conjure is <em>fucking hell</em>.</p><p>“I don’t care about my leg.”</p><p>“I do,” Julian says, voice somehow dropping even lower in its choppiness, broken syllables like they’re remaking a vow they broke, thick with what Kai knows he needs and is aching to give him, “need you back… need you fit… so I can watch you play and die all over again.”</p><p>“You shouldn’t say things like that, because if you do, I’m going to come right here.”</p><p>“Maybe you should,” Julian breathes, “would be sweet revenge for all the times I’ve had to make myself come in my shower ever since you stopped talking to me.”</p><p>With it, Julian thrusts down properly for the first time in spite of the restrictions their clothes might put on them, head collapsing into the crook of Kai’s neck and trembling slightly above him, and Kai is sure this is what heaven must feel like, Julian’s not even touched his dick yet and he’s already feeling like he’s ascended to somewhere else, and in all the times they’ve done this, he doesn’t ever remember it being this fucking good.  His hand, the other guys he fucked in that club trying to pretend like he didn’t miss Julian, were poor substitutes to this, to the soft, hot weight of the man he’s certain must be the love of his life against him, above him, taking control and robbing Kai of his own sensibility and he’s the only man that Kai doesn’t care he’s given that to.</p><p>“Fuck,” Julian pants, sweat already forming on the top of his forehead as he thrusts down another couple of times, grinding his erection against Kai’s, and Kai can’t keep himself from whining out his boyfriend’s name, finally breaking free of the chains of inhibition that shackled his hips to the bed, thrusting back against the older man, rubbing up against him and grunting slightly when Julian unconsciously puts his entire weight on him.</p><p>Kai uses it as an excuse to move his hand down, slip along the covered beauty of Julian’s ass, giggling slightly at the shuddering exhale his boyfriend lets out. </p><p>“Alright there?”</p><p>“Don’t you dare fucking tease me.”</p><p>“I’m not the one who almost came just because I thrusted once,” Kai sniggers, more than happy to pretend that’s not the precise thing that ran unfiltered through his head the moment Julian so much as touched his skin with his lips.</p><p>Something in his words serves to anger Julian in the hottest way possible, his boyfriend’s voice low and torturous, burning ecstasy creeping across his skin that he knows the older man can feel, he’s definitely the goddamn fucking source of it, and the fact that Julian is thrusting so hard he might as well be fucking him is what does him in.</p><p>It might be the gasps, it might be the explicitly dirty trajectory of his own thoughts, and fuck knows it’s Julian doing him like his life depends on it, sweat-slicked skin rubbing against his own, a thumb moving to slide across Kai’s nipple and sends his entire body haywire, losing the last ounce of control he thought he might have had, when the threatening knot tightens painfully before coming entirely undone from out of nowhere.</p><p>Julian grinds down on him the whole way through his orgasm, and Kai’s fogged brain just about supplies the humiliating idea that Julian is completely sober, not suffering the threat or throe of orgasm, right before his boyfriend collapses down on him again and moans his name so loud Kai’s dick is half-hard again, before he’s even adjusted to the uncomfortable stickiness in his underwear.</p><p>“Fuck,” Julian says again, and Kai would laugh if he wasn’t caught in a damning chasm between spent and aroused.  Instead, he huffs something that sounds like agreement, lets his boyfriend roll off him and onto the mattress and pull him into his bare chest.  They can deal with the awkward situation down there in a moment, “that’s not how I imagined our first time back together to go.”</p><p>“How did you imagine it?” Kai murmurs, lacing a hand in Julian’s blonde hair, heart skipping as he watches it curl slightly from the sweat.  He wonders if Julian has any idea how fucking attractive he is.</p><p>“Definitely more refined than this, more me sweeping you off your feet--,”</p><p>“There’s no way you’d be able to do that, you’re weak as shit.”</p><p>“Good to know you’re still as lovely as ever,” Julian says, taking another merciless swipe at Kai’s dick and raising his eyebrows when he runs across the bulge, Kai unable to conceal the shiver that takes over him, “and still as horny as ever.”</p><p>“Don’t mock me, we both just came pretty much untouched.”</p><p>“I at least managed to hold out longer,” Julian smirks, Kai’s comment drowned out by the way Julian’s hand snakes around his body and pulls him in.  He’s sure his boyfriend only meant for a little peck, probably in favour of going back to teasing him about whatever comes to mind, so Kai takes great pleasure in catching him entirely off guard, shoving a leg in between Julian’s own as he deepens their kiss, hands moving to play with the waistband of Julian’s sweatpants.  His boyfriend mumbles his name in a tone that sounds almost reverent, Kai hears it against his lips, almost chokes on air at how much it affects him.</p><p>Judging by the way Julian’s gaze clouds over and the light touch on his uninjured thigh gets harder, pressing down as if he’s trying to bruise the skin, mark Kai so he knows who he belongs to, Kai’s involuntary actions are having their intended effect.</p><p>“Have you done this since the last time we did?”</p><p>“No,” he answers, “sucked a couple of people off outside a club, but that’s it.  You?”</p><p>“Nah,” Julian breathes, rolling back on top of Kai, dislodging his sweatpants from Kai’s exploratory touch with a smirk, eyes glinting at Kai’s whimper, “don’t think I could’ve got hard if I tried.”</p><p>“Let’s hope you can now,” Kai says, readjusting his fingertips to slide back under Julian’s waistband, thumb running against the trickle of blonde hair on his navel, running against it and relishing in the way Julian shivers, glorious, gorgeous, as if Kai had submerged him into an ice bath naked.  His mind is shot the second he registers the line of Julian’s underwear, hand venturing further until it hits a sticky, wet spot, tell-tale and probably the hottest thing Kai’s ever felt, Julian’s hips bucking up as if he’s going to die if Kai doesn’t give him any more friction.</p><p>As if on cue, Julian begs for it, and the catch to his voice is enough to give Kai the confidence to shove his boyfriend’s sweatpants down his legs, stopping to run a finger along the inside of his thighs, delighted when Julian’s head lolls against his chest, whispered prayers muttered into his skin.</p><p>Kai’s stomach squeezes and he mumbles untraceable curses when Julian runs a thumb over his nipple again.  He’ll never get used to the low thrill, even if he’s got forever to do so.</p><p>Julian kicks his sweatpants off, before his hands come to rest on Kai’s waistline, fondling the material uncertainly, as if asking for silent consent.  Kai’s kiss makes him brave.</p><p>Julian’s legs intertwined with his own feels more intimate than it ever has before.  It’s only when his boyfriend kicks off his own boxers, chucking them in the vague direction of the laundry pile (Kai’s heart aches when he remembers exactly how Julian knows precisely where that is) and pulls on Kai’s own does he suddenly come over all nervous.  He isn’t sure how Julian knows, maybe his boyfriend can feel him tense or something, because suddenly he stops lacing a teasing hand down, curling his fingers into the slight layer of dark hair, and unmitigated concern flickers in his expression.</p><p>His dick presses down into Kai’s hip, tip wet and Kai loses the ability to think.</p><p>“You okay?  You want to do this?”</p><p>“Yeah,” he’s not lying, because he does, it’s just like his mind has forgotten that today has happened and he’s been struck with a sense of agonising déjà vu, back when he’d be fucked into his own silence. “Just, a little bit overwhelmed.”</p><p>“Me too,” Julian murmurs, looking, for the first time since he pulled Kai onto the bed, uncertain.  It’s welcome, for all the effort Kai uses to kiss the countenance off his face.  “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”</p><p>“You don’t need to worry about that,” Kai moves Julian’s hand inside the line of his underwear, entire body tensing in tensed pleasure when Julian’s fingers curl around his cock and stroke once, twice, and all Kai knows is he is categorically Julian’s and he isn’t fucking going anywhere.  The moment he’s naked, he should boil in embarrassment, go to hide his face like he always used to want to, but he doesn’t.  Because Julian’s eyes are running down every inch of his skin, hands not touching, like Kai’s some delicate sculpture he can only look out.  It’s unnerving and sets another wave of stimulation through his body, straight to his cock.</p><p>His need to be touched is consuming him, so much so he isn’t even aware he begs through his struggle for air.  Julian does, at a much better grip now Kai’s not obstructed by his own boxers, hand falling back into the natural rhythm that used to send Kai crazy like they haven’t missed a day.</p><p>It still doesn’t seem real, he’s going to fall into something that will sound like drunken philosophising, but he can’t help it.  He’s half-convinced he’s fallen asleep by the river and he’s going to wake up soon, with nothing but contracted hypothermia and probably underwear stained with come, but it doesn’t feel hazy.  Julian’s scent surrounds him, cocoons him, safe and warm and familiar and <em>that’s </em>why it doesn’t feel real.  The fact that after all the things Kai’s done, Julian still wants to be back here.</p><p>Julian must be insane.  There’s no other explanation.</p><p>“Is the lube still in the same place?”</p><p>Kai isn’t sure what happens first, the nod he’s resigned to in response (god knows the lust in Julian’s words cut off his own vocal cords) or the horrific worry that’s he’s come just from that that settles over him.  His boyfriend merely huffs a laugh for the millionth time, smiling affectionately.</p><p>The pop of the lube cap feels awfully loud in the heated silence.</p><p>Kai spreads his legs without thinking, body starting automatically when Julian moans at the movement,</p><p>“Caught you off guard?”</p><p>“Okay, I know you love teasing me, but please stop when I’m literally about to finger you.”</p><p>There’s something so gorgeous about Julian talking that filthily that Kai actually listens, head resting against the pillow as Julian coats his fingers in probably too much lube (he’s shaking, Kai can see it, but he doesn’t say anything because god knows he’d be worse if he was in Julian’s situation), leaning down to kiss Kai’s belly, run his lips down the tanned length of Kai’s hips, his upper legs, trailing all across the curve of Kai’s thighs, paying particular, incredibly arousing, attention to the pull of Kai’s leg muscles.  The feeling of his mouth is so soft on his injured leg, Kai’s sure Julian’s done more in three kisses than the physio did in the entire session earlier.</p><p>His mind is so caught on Julian’s mouth he almost misses Julian press into him, until he feels the slight burn.  It feels like a new beginning. </p><p>
  <em>The first time they’d done this, Kai had almost cried.  Julian took great pleasure in mocking him for it, but no matter what the fucker said, it wasn’t like he broke down in tears.  It had just been wet stains in the bags of his eyes, because it had fucking hurt. Not just the pain, but the humiliation, the depressing shock of realising he had signed up for a life of lying and pretending like he was just being fucked and that was the end of it.</em>
</p><p>That whole shitshow coming to an end is the biggest blessing he has ever received.  He can’t be sure if it’s even real.</p><p>When they’d been apart, Kai would’ve given anything for the mocking comments as long as he meant he just got Julian back.  Concealing it had never worked, and god does he understand what that means now.</p><p>“God, I missed this,” Julian moans, and Kai would agree with the sentiment if he could find the words to do so.  It almost feels like he’s been caught, like his boyfriend has read his mind, and he’d be embarrassed if he didn’t remember that they’ve essentially been through the same Hell.</p><p>Kai wants to stay there forever, with Julian touching him so fucking gently, stretching him until he’s dizzy, dick leaking of his own accord.  His body is covered in goose bumps, he can’t take his eyes off his boyfriend and the way his tongue has slipped out to lick his lips as he fucks into Kai, and god, Kai feels like he’s constantly on the edge of falling into a million pieces. </p><p>Steeling himself feels like scaling Everest, but he’s got to.  He can’t ruin this by coming too soon, even though he knows Julian recognises the minutiae of his movements and probably can guess how murderous coasting Kai along the edge of the abyss for so long is, but he carries on, adding a second finger and Kai tenses so tightly his ab muscles become visible.</p><p>Julian traces a finger of his other hand along the outline, eyes flicking up to Kai’s with a mischievous glint.</p><p>Kai almost comes when Julian thrusts both fingers in, so rough, getting tantalisingly close to the spot he knows will send him into a state of such overstimulation, he’ll probably melt right in front of his boyfriend’s eyes, and fuck knows he’ll never live that down.</p><p>Maybe Julian’s being careful, he probably knows that if he goes too hard Kai actually will fall off the edge too early again, but he can see it in the way Julian’s thumb strokes absent-mindedly over the jut of his hipbone, the way that his boyfriend isn’t looking exclusively at what he’s doing like he used to, eyes meeting Kai and a pinkish blush staining his cheeks (he looks so good, it’s unfair) and Kai can’t remember if the older man was always this touchy, or if he feels like he’s indulging in forbidden fruit, unable to get enough of the thrum of risk, of danger.</p><p>It’s easier to think about Julian thinking about him than to concentrate on what’s happening right there, because it’s so much to take in his head’s light.  He still doesn’t know what Julian thinks of him, save for what he confessed earlier, but for the first time since he realised that he loved him, he couldn’t care.  It doesn’t seem to matter anymore now Julian’s his.</p><p>Julian’s taken him, all imperfections and flaws, scars from years of football that never quite faded, silvery glints still littered on his calves, he came back for Kai, and the meaning of what the older man said by the river starts to sink in.  Kai didn’t believe things were meant to be until today, and maybe he still doesn’t.  All he knows is that Julian loves him, and that’s a damn lot more than he knew yesterday when he still tried to convince himself hate had built a thick, unbridgeable wall between the two of them.</p><p>If the moment wasn’t so heavy, what with Julian finally sliding his fingers out (Kai releases a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding), he’d laugh at the belated revelations.  He hasn’t felt it before right then, this crushing sense of what most feels like nerves before a massive game, or maybe he was just trying to ignore it, too swept away in feeling what Julian was doing to him and riding his own shitty internal monologue, but they let him know of their presence with an unnerving ferocity now Julian’s standing up, stroking his cock and biting his lip like his own sense of relief had suffered some kind of neglect while he paid attention to Kai.  He almost can’t breathe.</p><p>He mutters a curse under his breath when Julian notices.  Of course, he does, and Kai wants to scream at himself for <em>ruining this </em>when his boyfriend stutters out what feels like a never-ending stream of concerns, barely giving Kai time to debunk them.  He needs Julian.</p><p>It probably doesn’t seem convincing, the way his voice trembles again when he finally gets a chance to tell Julian as much, but then his boyfriend rolls a condom on and all Kai can do is rest against the pillow, heart pounding probably faster than it ever has before, eyes tracing the patterns on the ceiling.  It’s weird, because he thinks if Julian touches him, it’ll kill him, but he doesn’t want anything more.</p><p>Julian’s hips stutter as he pushes into Kai, and it takes Kai an awful lot of forced equanimity not to spill all over his stomach right there.  Julian’s thumbs sting from where they run against his skin, and Kai’s sure if he was to look at his body right then, there’d be disorganised, angry marks wherever Julian’s touch has been.  But he couldn’t look even if he wanted to, because his eyes are trapped in Julian’s own, and it’d be cringeworthy if he wasn’t too fucked to give a shit.</p><p>His boyfriend’s breath comes in uneven waves in the tiny, burning space between them.  Kai kisses him, grips onto the back of the other man’s hand, thrusting against the sensations that threaten to claim him alongside everything else he’s already victim of, legs spread and more than anything, he wants Julian to <em>say something</em>.</p><p>Silence consumes it, and fuck, no, Kai won’t, can’t have that.  He can’t go through this again.</p><p>“Jule---,” he exhales, cringing at the way his breath catches on the second syllable.</p><p>“Fuck, you---,” Julian pauses, moves his hips so far back he’s almost out, just the head of his cock brushing against the nerves of Kai’s rim, Kai feels like he’s been rearranged by the sheer addictiveness of the rush that flies through him.  The ceiling has become invisible, he can’t see it anymore over the white spots of lust that are clouding his vision, nails scraping over Julian’s back, maybe hard enough to bleed.  Julian thrusts back in, so hard, Kai doesn’t have a clue where his thoughts were, “you called me Jule again.”</p><p>“What about it---,” he’s cut off by his own moan.  Julian’s started to pick up the pace, Kai a broken wreck beneath him in embarrassing speed, Julian’s hands moving to hold Kai’s legs apart because he no longer has control over any part of his body. </p><p>Barcelona, this had happened, and it had felt so routine Kai wasn’t really satisfied anymore.  Now, he doesn’t have a fucking clue how he couldn’t be with Julian fucking him like this.</p><p>“Don’t think I---,” Julian’s tongue falls out, licking at a cut on his own lip Kai didn’t notice before, “I didn’t realise that you’d stopped calling me that.”</p><p>The tip of Julian’s dick brushes against the spot in Kai, only slightly, but the adrenaline it elicits rushes through Kai almost renders him completely useless.  It only gets faster from then, the two of them groaning sweet nothings that are going to mean the world and nothing once this is over, Julian’s hips angled to hit that one spot inside Kai, and once he’s found it, Kai doesn’t have anything to counteract the attack.</p><p>He lies there, gasping, as Julian fucks into him all the things he hasn’t been able to say.  The words to describe Kai must flit slightly out of Julian’s reach.  God knows Kai’s well acquainted with the sentiment.</p><p>He isn’t sure if he lets out the whine, or if it just rings in his head like some awkward residue of something he’ll bring himself to be embarrassed about later, when he isn’t so desperate, but it doesn’t matter, because Julian brings a hand to his dick, timing his strokes alongside the thrusts inside Kai, and god, there’s no way he’s going to last any longer.</p><p>Really, he was an idiot to imagine this in any other way that wasn’t barely clinging on for two minutes before coming everywhere, because he hasn’t got proper relief since he cut off their contact and his boyfriend just is that fucking hot.</p><p>Something warm forms rapidly in the pit of his stomach.</p><p>He feels himself on the edge again, rocks crumbling underneath his weight; Julian leans down to kiss him, using up what must be the last of a quickly depleting energy supply, and the groan of his name gets caught against his boyfriend’s skin as Kai bucks up involuntarily.</p><p>The white spots completely cover his vision and he’d think he was dying if it wasn’t for the only thing him being able to hear is his ragged breathing, the distant moans of Julian, and the insane pound of throbbing blood rushing through his head.</p><p>After, Kai isn’t sure if he should feel like this so quickly, even if it had been a long time coming.  Julian, collapsed beside him, still breathing heavily, hair somehow more messed up than Kai’s ever seen it, and knowing he’d want to see this every day for the rest of his life and would give up anything else for that to happen should seem immensely premature.  But Julian groans slightly, as if he’s trying to rise up from the depths of slumber, and Kai would be lying if he said he wasn’t absolutely fucked.</p><p>“You alright there?” He says quietly, smile spreading on his lips instinctively.</p><p>“Mmm,” his boyfriend groans again, looking like a morning where his attempt at waking up has been utterly unsuccessful, seconds away from collapsing against the pillow again and drifting back off.  Kai should be embarrassed about how much it turns him on despite the fact they’ve just had the messiest, most beautiful round of sex he’s ever had in his life. “I need to call Lӧw.”</p><p>“Can it wait?” He shifts so the hand Julian’s still got on his inner thigh brushes against his dick, too affected by Julian’s presence to care.</p><p>“The resilience of youth,” Julian sighs, “Kai, I love you, and I want to do what just happened every day until I die, but if I try and do it again now, I might actually die right here.”</p><p>“Bold words for someone who almost killed me twice,” Kai says, before coiling into himself in embarrassment as the smirk on his boyfriend’s face grows, and he just knows the fucker is going to absolutely rib the shit out of him for it.  The gentle slow of the blood left from his orgasm is about the only thing he can focus on to drown out the obnoxious crowing of sexual prowess that comes to a sudden end when Kai kicks the other man off the bed entirely.</p><p>The punishment is an eyeful of Julian’s torso and a grunt of agony when the older man throws himself on Kai.</p><p>“Can’t believe I was being nice to you and you treat me like that!  I’ll break up with you.”</p><p>“You do that,” Kai murmurs, strangely sleepy even though the sun has barely set below the city skyline, the lights from the opposite apartment blocks starting to flick on slowly, “we can go back to all those months.”</p><p>“You wouldn’t want that any more than I do,” Julian places a kiss on his forehead before he mumbles a reiteration about calling the national team staff (Kai smiles grimly at the evisceration likely to be heading down the phone, filling the comfortable silence within about a minute), and Kai’s probably absolutely fucked again for missing the solid weight as soon as it’s gone.  There’s something about the warmth that his boyfriend gives off, safe and homely, he knows that once the insanity of this has all worn off, if they make it as far as the stage as being fucking <em>domesticated,</em> it’ll become what he knows happiness to be.  What he’s feeling right now isn’t too far off, and he’d be scared about how implausible that should be if it wasn’t Julian.</p><p>Julian’s rifling through Kai’s wardrobe, completely naked, and if it wasn’t for the fact Julian had literally just told him he couldn’t survive another round, he would’ve been tempted to jump him.  Instead he just sits there, vision still a little glazed from his orgasm, hair probably sticking up at all angles and lips kiss-bitten, flushed pink and plump, duvet around his ankles and all twisted, relishing in the intensity of the love that flows through him.  He could get drunk on it, is certain he’s already inebriated by Julian, let himself relax into an intoxication and watch all the colours whirl together, because he knows the only thing that he could make out in the eyesore of obscurity would be Julian.</p><p>He wouldn’t want life any other way.</p><p>He’s always known that, but right then, as Julian pulls a pair of sweatpants Kai knows actually belong to the older man, turning to shoot him a look with too much affection instilled in to really be accusatory, he’s never felt it as bad as right then.  He almost misses Julian’s comment in favour of just admiring his fucking stunning face.</p><p>“I was looking for these for months!”</p><p>“Sorry,” he tries to create an expression of disinterest, teasing, but he’s suffering the same drug as his boyfriend.  The smile gracing his face is dopey with the trip of elation, “I guess they just ended up with my clothes, but I haven’t worn them because they would always be slung too low on my hips.  You’re fucking short.”</p><p>“Maybe you should wear them now.”</p><p>“Thought you didn’t want another round of sex?” Kai raises his eyebrows, unable to take his eyes off his boyfriend as he pulls the clothing on, walking out of Kai’s room completely indifferent to the fact his whole chest is exposed, miles of flesh that Kai wants to bite possessive marks into, and if he never appreciated it before, he’s definitely regretting not doing so because  Julian is a very attractive little shit.</p><p>He pulls something microwavable out of the fridge, jumping up to sit on the counter and watch his boyfriend amble around, pulling on his lips (Kai wants to kiss him again) as he listens to whatever the national team staff are saying to him.</p><p>Right there, with the whirr of the microwave, the soft hum of Julian’s voice as he tries to explain why he has to withdraw from the team at such late notice without giving the two of them away, the simplicity of it all kills him.  How different this all was, even twelve hours ago, when he dragged himself into Sophia’s car and frowned at the bright smile on her face, and for a moment he can forget about the things he’s experienced in this kitchen, the cuts from the broken plates that smashed against the floor when his throat felt too tight and breathing became impossible.  Julian brings back all the colour he didn’t realise he’d even lost.</p><p>The beep of the food being ready disturbs him, and he’s just portioning it onto two plates when he feels strong arms wrap around his middle, all his nerves at the spot Julian’s touching sparking and screaming with a delicious intensity, blood flowing away from his brain so fast he almost loses his footing in disorientation, but it wouldn’t have mattered if he’d fallen, Julian would’ve caught him, stifling a beautiful laugh.</p><p>Kai doesn’t know if he should slap him gently for something his boyfriend hasn’t even done.</p><p>He wouldn’t call himself a good cook, most of the food he’s made in the past months has tasted like ash rotting in his mouth, but with Julian kicking his shins under the table just like he used to, refusing to let go of Kai’s left hand and running his thumb over Kai’s knuckles, little sparks of bliss emit from the spot Julian touches, everything just seems so much better.  There isn’t really another word for it, what he’s feeling, then a hell of a lot <em>better </em>than ever before.</p><p>“What did Lӧw say?”</p><p>“He was pissed off, but that isn’t news,” they both snort, Julian accidentally choking on his rice which just makes Kai laugh harder, stomach whining in protest at the exertion that forces Kai to lean forward, flipping off his boyfriend for no reason other than he can, “but he eventually just accepted it and hung up.  No more international callups for me, but honestly, I’d rather have you.”</p><p>“That’s not very good for your career.”</p><p>“Good for my personal life, unless of course you decide to accept his callups and leave me here by myself.”</p><p>“Nice taste of your own medicine,” he shoots back, grinning again at the unimpressed look Julian gives him, hand squeezing Kai’s so hard he yelps in a high enough pitch to evoke another puff of laughter from the older man, “you’re a fucker.”</p><p>“So you keep saying.”</p><p>“Fuck off, I’m tired.  It’s been a long day for me, Sophia rang me at six this morning.”</p><p>“It’s not even that late!” The older man protests, indignance masking his face, before a devilish smile breaks the act, “fucking hell, did I fuck all the energy out of you or something?”</p><p>“It’s dark outside, late enough,” Kai grumbles, taking another few bites of the food that is finally cool enough to start eating without resorting to miniscule bites and gulps of water to stop his tongue burning, “if you want to stay up and be all romantic late at night, we’ve got all week for that.  Just let me sleep tonight, dickhead.  You don’t even have to come with me.”</p><p>Julian doesn’t respond, too busy wolfing down his food so quickly Kai’s worried about indigestion, almost knocking Kai’s glass of water onto the glass table when he stands up before Kai’s even halfway through his meal.  It takes them another ten minutes to even stack their dishes into the dishwasher, too busy bickering and Julian pressing messy, gross, food-scented kisses against Kai’s mouth just to make eating excruciatingly difficult.  It’s definitely unhealthy, what Julian’s doing to him, because Kai’s not sure he can even breathe.</p><p>The soft notes of the piano flutter through the flat when he begins a late evening practice, tinny sound swirling around, creating delicate, invisible patterns in the air as Julian steps out onto Kai’s balcony, hands resting against the iron gate, dark orange light from the city casting itself down onto him, coupled with the reflection of the moonlight of his skin.  Kai’s heart skips slightly, just enough for him to notice and for the strength to escape his body, blood runs thin, uneven as his hands glide across the keys, playing something simple he taught himself years ago just because he’d much rather focus on Julian, his effortless beauty, and feel a little as though they’ve fallen into a scene out of a movie.  If he thinks about it, their story could be plucked out of something from a cheesy teenage flick, this serene ideal of picturesque love something he didn’t even believe existed until Julian turns, eyes falling on Kai and his piano in the corner of the room.</p><p>“I forgot how good you were at that.”</p><p>“Eh, I’m never going to be anything special on it,” his fingers play an arpeggio without thinking, deep tones accentuating the dark shadow of the older man’s body and the catch of the wind in his hair, “but thank you.”</p><p>“Doesn’t matter how good you are if you love it, just like we always tell those kids in interviews,” Kai’s eyes travel to Julian’s smile, heart throwing caution to the wind for the second time in as many minutes when he sees how real it is, nothing like the forced smiles he’s seen from one too many cameras being shoved in his face.  Kai hopes he’ll be able to bring it out in him forever, “um, Kai?”</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“Can you just join me out here a minute?”</p><p>The wind that whirled around them in the hideaway earlier is still there, stronger now with the backing of the black sky, but it’s almost warm for the late autumn season.  Kai remembers the way he’d shivered in it earlier, but once Julian pulls him into his arms, not caring that anyone could look up and see them from the street below, he forgets all about it.</p><p>“I missed this place,” Julian whispers, pulling his eyes from where they’d settled on Kai’s face back onto the city, squinting up at the Bayer illuminations from the city centre, bright and red, and the light cascading down from the stadium off in the distance, in the same way it had swept down over the roads the night they had fought in Julian’s hallway all those months ago.  His voice sounds oddly thick. “I couldn’t bring myself to come back, and then when I did---.”</p><p>Kai only realises he might not be ready to hear the answer once he’s mumbled, “why not?”</p><p>“Because you were here, and I wanted to hate you so bad,” Julian breathes and it still hurts Kai even though he really should’ve expected it, Julian has practically told him as much before, “and then when I did finally come back, you didn’t exactly take delight in seeing me on your doorstep.  Not to mention all the other memories; like I ran here because they were the first place that offered after the whole Noah fiasco.”</p><p>“I’m so sorry,” there’s a wall in Kai’s throat, translucent and passable, but god, does it take effort he’s not sure he can sustain for very long at all, “about both of those things.”</p><p>“I know you are.  I’m sorry I kept pushing when you weren’t ready to talk about it.”</p><p>“Don’t apologise,” Kai murmurs, pressing a light kiss on Julian’s forehead, craning his neck to reach and shuddering at the feeling of the older man smiling against his skin, “deep down, I was probably ready maybe five minutes after I sent you that text that I had found someone else.  I just didn’t want to be, so really, I should be the one apologising.”</p><p>“It’s fine,” Julian says, and Kai wants to reprimand him, because they both know it really isn’t, for all the whirlwind they’ve been through today alone, there’s months of hate and complication that they have to work through at some point, and it’s going to be painful, and Kai’s scared of revisiting it, but he doesn’t.  Julian knows anyway, Kai can see it in his eyes, hates himself that he’s so intoned he can watch the whole thing play out all over again in the glisten of the blue, but he <em>doesn’t say it.</em>  It’ll all come out, just not tonight.  Tonight, it’s just Julian, Kai, and the city they fell in love with.  There doesn’t need to be anything else.</p><p>Both of their voices fall silent after that, the only noise the whip of the wind rolling around between the blocks of flats, their bodies pressed so close together they might as well be entwined as one, not looking at each other because they don’t need to.  Kai’s mind just dully reruns the days’ events, the leap in his heart when Julian told him he loved him and everything that happened after, blushing slightly at the arousal that overcame him.  Julian can tell, his boyfriend huffs a giggle from inside his arms, but they must lose track of time, watching the evening fall asleep and the night come alive.</p><p>Time doesn’t matter when they’ve got plenty of it.  Kai knows that now.</p><p>“We should probably go to bed,” Julian murmurs, once Kai can’t conceal his yawns anymore.  It doesn’t take long before they’re there, all the night shit fading into a blur that Kai can’t decipher or describe save for the lingering thrill of Julian’s laugh that seems to be a constant echo in his flat again, since the moment he came back here, Julian back on Kai’s right just like he used to be, just like they’ve spent a million nights like.  Kai’s almost too scared to roll into Julian’s arms before the older says, in the same sing-song tone that sends a weak thrum through Kai’s veins, “come here, love.”</p><p>He never knew what he was missing until he’s in Julian’s arms properly.</p><p>When he whispers he loves him, feeling it mumbled back into his skin sends him into overdrive for the thousandth time, barely able to function enough to lay his hand over Julian’s arm, shuffle back and settle into the man’s grip, reluctant to fall asleep despite how bone-deep his exhaustion is in case he wakes and this all turns out to be the most emotionally barbaric of dreams.  The night might be cold, but he doesn’t feel it, and god, he missed Julian’s presence, everything about him, rolling over and fixing his eyes on his boyfriend just to take him in.</p><p>Julian starts in the way that belies falling asleep, and it’s so unchanged from what Kai knows he has to stop his heart from beating too fucking fast, work himself into peace in the crook of Julian’s neck, drinking in the scent just to calm him enough to catch the waves of sleep drifting onto his shore.</p><p>The first thing he realises when he wakes is that he can’t see a thing, the only light in the blackness is the red glow of the TV mounted on the wall.  The second thing he realises is that he’s fallen out of Julian’s grip during his sleep, but he can still feel the way the mattress sinks underneath his boyfriend’s body, and then all of that becomes irrelevant because he recognises the creeping uncertainty that rises through him, taking captive of his body with a violence Kai’s never been victim of.  He doesn’t know the sensation, is well-accustomed to what must be a fraction of the terror that courses through him, takes under a minute to own him completely and make him catatonic against the pillow he’s sitting up against, watching the blackness begin to spin around him.</p><p>Weirdly, he feels like he did the first time this happened, like Lars and Sven and the rest of the team are surveying him from their distance, hidden inside his room with night glasses, watching him, waiting for him to have another breakdown and find another reason to subject him to all the comfort mechanisms he’s grown to loathe.  His sight begins to adjust to the lack of light, Julian blurring into focus notwithstanding of how fucked up his sense of clarity becomes when he’s like this, but the sight doesn’t comfort him.  All he can see is how he <em>can’t </em>see Julian, nausea rolling like a grim threat in the pit of his stomach, ruining what remained of the pleasant dregs of arousal with its toxicity, distracting him just long enough for the indiscernible claws to tie that rope back around his neck, stab his skin with the pricks of barbed wire that lock across his airways.  His blood thins in an instant, pounds through his head with a poison extracted from the weaponry, and the worst thing is, he hasn’t got a fucking clue <em>why</em>.</p><p>He wants to yell, but Julian’s asleep.  He can’t see this.  He might know, and Kai knew he watched the one on the Irish coast, but he’s never been in this proximity.  He imagines the look of horror flitting across his boyfriend’s face, the guilty realisation that’s he’s let a freak take ownership of his heart, and that’s when Kai realises the incriminating claws are actually a harrowing representation of Julian’s own hand, as if it has been moulded and scathed by a Horcrux and Kai can’t stay there.</p><p>The second his feet touch the floor; they almost give out underneath him. </p><p>Given how the room is curling around, the walls caving in and suffocating him while his boyfriend sleeps as though everything is right in the world (Kai wants to scream because how the fuck can he be so fucking oblivious to a sentient nightmare?), it’s a miracle he can even find the door, hand scrabbling against the handle.  He has to get out, the room’s air is stale and there isn’t fucking enough of it, it’s not coming in at a thickness to sneak through the filter of the wire that’s choking him, he’s going to die and Julian’s going to wake to miserable sunlight glinting through the crack in the curtains the moon is currently taunting him through with it’s pale light that he can just about envision, and Kai lying on the floor, pulse non-existence and body stiff with lifelessness.</p><p>If it had to be any day, at least he got Julian’s lips against his one final fucking time.</p><p>His body hits the wall as he stumbles into the corridor, praying the noise doesn’t disturb Julian’s slumber.  He isn’t sure how he makes it down onto the sofa, gripping his hands so tight against themselves, nails pressing into his own skin with a pressure that resembles shards of glass, just like he is, he was made back up but he’s just fallen apart all over again like the weak, useless, waste of space he was an idiot to believe he wasn’t, even for the shortest amount of time.  Blood trickles from the self-inflicted puncture wounds, but he can’t bring himself to care.  He’s dimly aware his whole body is shaking, whether from the panic or the cold that has suddenly infiltrated him and freezing the fear to a dead, solid weight that’s going to be immovable, and the thought merely multiplies the worry to a level he’s never had before.</p><p>It’s the most full emptiness, most sickening thrill, and he wants nothing more than to scream until the worst is over, and then he can be plunged into the reality that Julian’s going to think he’s fucking insane, break up with him even though it’s the middle of the night (through his eyes, blurred with tears that are falling even though he’s oblivious to the wet streaks slipping down his cheeks, he can see it’s a little past three in the morning).  </p><p>He can’t bring himself to prepare for it, his insides are laced with sharp-edged ice, stone, things he can’t get rid of that weigh him down, he can’t escape them, can’t even bring himself to be sick. </p><p>The flat begins to float, he’s trapped between what he can sense, feel, and what he believes is really there.  Julian’s hands have stopped fiddling with the rope, slid it upwards until it’s resting just underneath his chin, scraping long scars along the expanse of his throat, and the same hands he felt run affectionate fingers along his sides earlier in the day are now gripping underneath, and he couldn’t scream for help even if he wanted his boyfriend to come.</p><p>Blood from his arms isn’t enough, it’s feeble, it doesn’t punish him enough for being such a fuck up, for thinking it was okay to treat Julian like that, to pretend like he wasn’t okay just to get out of talking about what went down between the two of them just because he was being a fucking coward.  Julian’s just riding on euphoria, it’s going to end as fast as it begins, and Kai’s got to bleed out before he can let that happen.</p><p>He needs something stronger.</p><p>His leg screams at him, his mind some crazed shell of the joyous state he was in earlier, it craves the agony from the injury he’d forgotten about since Julian came to find him, but he has to fight against it.  He finds his way to the kitchen, banging his hip on the counter, hard enough to bruise the precise spot Julian was touching with such a fleeting love mere hours ago, hands finding the drawer to the plates and breaking one the second he lifts it from the stack.</p><p>A shard sticks in his arm, gashing it open, and there’s the nauseating sense of déjà vu that resurfaces every time this happens, the thoughts that conquer him merciless and he believes them, he shouldn’t, Hans has been helping him block them out but it’s not working, the techniques aren’t doing anything to tame the beast, embellished with Julian’s hands, that’s running riot in his head.  It demands more blood, more pain, more hurt for what he’s done, and he’s dazed, so out of control he doesn’t even realise he’s collapsed to the floor until he feels several remnants of the plate impale him.</p><p>His lungs are straining, desperate, in his chest, but he doesn’t have the strength to grapple with the monster, everything he hates about himself that he loves in Julian is laid out before him in the blackness that doesn’t seem quite so vivid now the thirst for his own tribulation has subsided somewhat.  The only thing left now is death as he watches the pattern on his ceiling slowly fade out of his vision.</p><p>But it doesn’t happen.  He’s not left on a cliff-hanger, teetering towards his own end, but he hears his saviour long before he can make it out.  He just about has time to curse himself when Julian switches the light on, blinking against the sudden burst as he settles on Kai and the bloody mess around him.</p><p>“Kai,” he says weakly, voice deep with the remains of his drowsiness, but set, hard, and fuck, here we go, Kai thinks, as dry as he can make it when he can barely breathe.  He doesn’t have time to wish away the hard line of whatever’s made his way into his bloodstream, all he can do is shake violently and feel a few tears slip down his cheeks, the peril only getting harder when Julian settles down beside him, placing gentle hands on Kai’s body, “Kai, love, what happened?”</p><p>Kai can’t speak.  All he can do is sob even harder, and fuck, he’s going to make himself sick.  He’s been so scared of getting his heartbroken, and now he’s the master of his own downfall.  He wonders if the people he’s pissed off will enjoy this karma when Julian tells them everything.</p><p>“Love,” Julian says again, the endearment going straight to Kai’s cracking heart and grasp it, “I know I shouldn’t move you really, but I can’t let you sit there in all of that shit, it’s going to kill me.  Can you stand?”</p><p>Kai’s certain the ‘no,’ he cries out is inaudible, but it doesn’t matter, because Julian seems to understand anyway, locking his arms under Kai’s body and sweeping him into his arms.  Kai falls against his chest, sobbing into the bare skin, and he is mutely aware that he’s convulsing, body panicking in the absence of Julian’s calming voice.</p><p>His boyfriend places him on the toilet lid, keeping one hand caught in both of Kai’s own as he rummages through the medicine cabinet for something Kai can’t quite see, murmuring sweet comforts that doesn’t at all sound like he’s mad.  Kai doesn’t know whether that makes him feel even worse, because surely the inevitable is coming. </p><p>Water runs against the cuts and he hisses through his teeth, unable to meet Julian’s eyes.</p><p>“Hey, shh,” he hears Julian whisper, feeling the guttural sobs reduce to little more than disorganised hiccups, the waves of panic slowly rolling back out onto the intangible horizon, his surroundings beginning to become more clear, apart from the watery glistens that still fall from his eyes, create a rain-on-window pattern on his cheeks that looks awful in the mirror opposite.  He almost can’t look, but it’s a disturbing addiction. </p><p>He flinches when Julian removes his arm from the tap, drying it and wiping it with antiseptic that stings right through his skin, and he expects Julian to laugh at him.</p><p>He doesn’t.</p><p>The hands, the rope, they begin to remove themselves from his neck, and he takes a shuddering breath, missing the peak of the water by a millisecond.  Julian breathes out encouragements that sound almost ghostly, quiet, as if he’s scared to say it any louder in case it startles Kai back into another bout of panic.</p><p>The sentiment gives him enough courage to meet Julian’s eyes, but he can’t fight the blush that stains his cheeks.  His heart almost dies all over again when he sees nothing but concern in them.</p><p>“You’re not lying?” He croaks out, before he remembers that Julian has no idea what he’s thinking about, “that you care about me, and you’re not just doing this because you happen to be sleeping at my house?”</p><p>“No,” Julian answers, so soft Kai almost misses it.  He tries, he can’t stop himself from it, to not believe him, but he can’t.  He thinks something must show on his face, or maybe Julian can see that he’s a little more present now, because his voice is more definite now, Kai would believe it was matter of fact if it wasn’t for the indistinct love in his expression, “I’m just going to bandage your arm, is anywhere else cut?”</p><p>He shakes his head, eyes glued to the intricacies of Julian’s movement as he wraps the pristine white cloth around Kai’s arm, pinning it delicately far from Kai’s hand, watching as the snow colour darkens with the bit of blood still falling from the wound.</p><p>“I’ll carry you back to bed, and I’ll quickly clean the kitchen so we don’t cut ourselves tomorrow morning, and we can sit and talk for a bit.”</p><p>Kai doesn’t have the strength to protest, just cuddles back into the sturdy muscle of his boyfriend, cringing slightly when his cheeks rubs against the wet patch from his tears, feeling like the angry reds and greys of torture that forced themselves into the forefront of everything he could see are muted now he’s back in Julian’s arms, breathing almost normally, and just about manages to stay awake long enough for his boyfriend to re-enter the room five minutes later.</p><p>“I’m sorry.”</p><p>“For what?”</p><p>“This,” he says, unable to look his boyfriend in the eyes when he gets into bed beside him, pulling him down and placing open-mouthed kisses against his forehead.  His fear, the panic attack, it all feels like it happened a month ago now, and he’d believe it if it wasn’t for the little jolts of pain emanating from his arm, and the twinges in his leg that won’t let him forget the whole reason why this whole shit is happening.</p><p>It’s like his pain is fighting for pride, like all of him wants to take the credit for being able to give him what he’s always wanted.</p><p>“Don’t be,” Julian presses another kiss on his lips, “I’m sorry I wasn’t there in time.”</p><p>“That isn’t your fault,” he whispers back, dragging his eyes away from his boyfriend’s face out of culpability, a bitter sense of remorse that sets itself down in the middle of the joy they’re supposed to be having, because he’s telling the truth.  “It’s mine.  I didn’t want to wake you.”</p><p>“Why not?”</p><p>“It’s embarrassing,” he mumbles, not sure if his boyfriend can even hear him and maybe it’d be better that way, “because I thought I was over this and it wouldn’t happen anymore, especially not now you’re here, and then it happens on our first fucking night together and I didn’t want you to see me like this because you’re going to think I’m weak and a fuck up and I didn’t want you to hate me.”</p><p>Tranquillity pierced by Kai’s own self-hate fills the room, spreads out into the parts Kai can’t even see, and Julian’s breathing is so level he’s almost lead to believe his boyfriend either hasn’t heard him or has actually fallen asleep, right before there’s a sharp inhale and words are falling out that aren’t the fault of him.</p><p>“It doesn’t just go away Kai, believe me.  This, whatever this is, it was never really explained to me in all the detail I wanted, but from what I know, I can tell this is a really serious issue, love.  And I’m so, so sorry if I had anything to do with the onset of it, because---,”</p><p>“---no,” Kai whispers.  He can’t let Julian blame himself, he’s the fucked up one here---,</p><p>“--- let me finish, love.  I’m sorry, because now you know how in love with you I am, I’m sure you can understand that I never would’ve wanted that to happen to you, and I’m sorry I was never there to comfort you when it did happen, but you’re an actual idiot if you thought I was going to hate you because of this.”</p><p>“We know I’m an idiot, I caused all of this shit.”</p><p>“No, like you said in Tallinn, you are not the only guilty one here,” Julian’s voice is light, relaxing, and he’s so comfortable and warm, scent enveloping Kai, Kai’s more than slightly worried he’s going to fall asleep before Julian finishes his little monologue.  “But what I was going to say was, I’ve got issues too, I was, probably still am, a jealous person just as fucked up as you are, who can’t really trust people.  You’d be more in your right to hate me for that than I would ever be for the fact that you have mental health issues.”</p><p>“As if I could let you go now that I have you, and besides, you don’t have to go to therapy, Jule.”</p><p>“Don’t be ashamed of that, Kai, please.”</p><p>Honesty pours through him, love a weapon Julian has provided him with, and it’s right about then he realises that Julian’s arsenal was never meant to kill <em>him</em>.  It was just meant to destroy the part of him he thought he couldn’t live without, the mindset that murdered him from the inside out.  His heart jumps so high it sticks in his throat.</p><p>“When’s your next session?”</p><p>“Tomorrow,” he says, probably sounding so fucking lovesick and too tired, too <em>in love </em>to even consider trying to conceal it, because he does love Julian, he wants, needs him to know that if it’s the last thing he ever says.  “Well, later today technically.”</p><p>“I’m coming with you.”</p><p>“You’re not allowed into the room.”</p><p>“Well, I’ll sit outside and wait for you then,” Julian brings Kai’s hand up to place a kiss against him, but it isn’t enough.  He wants more, and <em>he can have that now</em>, stomach fizzing with relief that Julian doesn’t hate him for any of this, so he rolls over inelegantly and attaches his lips to Julian’s own, sliding together and just letting himself revel in the blissful sensations that overcome him.</p><p>“I love you, Jule, but I’m really fucking tired.”</p><p>“I love you too, and we can sleep now, but just before we do, there’s something I need to tell you.  I’ve been dying to tell you for eleven years now, really.” Julian looks almost giddy, it’s weird.  It’s not like him, and for some inexplicable reason it sends Kai’s heart haywire.  It feels like love.</p><p>“What?” He yawns out, falling back against the pillow and watching Julian’s blue eyes in the dark.  He is so <em>fucking beautiful.</em></p><p>“I should’ve really said it back then, but I didn’t get the chance to, so I guess now is the next best time.”</p><p>“What the hell are you on about?”</p><p>“I think you might make it as a professional footballer one day.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>• Firstly, I'm literally crying and shaking right now, and I've got For The Last Time playing because there's no other song I can write this ending author's note to.  I can't actually believe this is over.  I remember starting this, back in May 2019, still with tears in my eyes from the news of Julian's transfer, thinking it'd take me a couple of months, and here we are, almost a year later, 230,000+ words later, having finished it.  That's fucking insane.</p><p>• On a sad note, I'm going to take a break from writing.  I don't know how long for yet, I might never come back (that's unlikely, but not impossible), or it might be a week and then I'll realise that I'm actually bored and miss it too much.  The whole thing is, my mental health is in such a bad place right now (I despise this whole chapter, because my issues have really got in the way of my writing and it's just generally bad) and I've worked myself into the ground trying to do this.  I can't put myself through that again, and I'm sorry for that.</p><p>• On a lighter note, I've got some people I want to thank:<br/>• Two women who mean the world to me: Blair (WinterHasCome) and Elise (TWS), who have listened to me whine on so many occasions on how shit I found the whole thing, who have always responded with such kindness to the extracts I have spammed them with (Elise checked the whole first half of Part 5 for me, bless her), and never failed to motivate me.  I really could not have done it without them, and this little bit feels so small compared to the amount they have done for me, and I'm just so fucking grateful that I met the two of them through doing this.  Please support their work.  I love you, girls.<br/>• Eva, who was a little source of excitable joy on Tumblr for me, and I am truly sorry if I ruin your assessments.  You're a fucking hero, and I love you as well.<br/>• To the other Bravertz writers, who have kept me entertained and kept me loving this ship when I thought I wouldn't anymore.  We have such a lovely community, if small, and I wouldn't have it any other way.<br/>• And last but by no means least, to all of you.  Every single person who has read, left kudos on, left comments on, any part of this work, even if they just read Part 1 and dismissed it all as pretentious bullshit (you would've been well in your right to).  For all the support you have given me, I cannot thank you enough.</p><p>• I'm around on Tumblr if you need anything, and you can always find me here, and I am absolutely willing to give my social medias to you on the condition that you don't expose my identity if I become the famous journalist I dream of (joking but also not joking)</p><p>• This series is now complete, however, if Kai Havertz transfers to Borussia Dortmund, I will write a Part 7, if you would want that.  It would only be short, but I would be happy to do it.</p><p>• I don't think anything I could say could really convey what I'm feeling right now, so I'll just sum it up like this: ♡</p>
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